Raciel Luis Esperanza (b. 1962) is a contemporary self-taught Mexican artist from Ocotlán de Morelos, Oaxaca, MX. Raciel’s work spans a range of mediums and physical forms ranging from bold mural-sized oil paintings to thousands of small, delicate works on paper. His work often incorporates found organic and repurposed discarded materials in his art including metal, wire, flower petals, berries, milk cartons, cardboard, dirt - a process going back to his childhood in Mexico.

As a child, Raciel lived and breathed art. Since art supplies were scarce and expensive, Raciel used found materials (wire, plants, paper, and plastic) to create sculptures, toys, paper mâché masks, and piñatas. He made puppets, and mechanical movies — hand-drawn scenes on spools of paper attached to a crank, to put on performances for neighborhood kids, and giving his mother the money he collected. When Raciel was in high school, his uncle, Oaxacan painter, Liborio Lopez Navarrete, taught him how to stretch and gesso a canvas. In the late ‘80s, Raciel moved from Mexico to Los Angeles, CA and eventually to Santa Fe, NM. Inspired by the great Mexican painters and muralists David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, and José Clemente Orozco, and acclaimed Oaxacan painter, and family friend, Rodolfo Morales, Raciel began work on a series of large-scale muralistic paintings on unstretched canvas, known as The Santa Fe Murals.

Raciel currently lives in Oakland, CA where he continues to paint and make art.