Emmanuel C. Montoya

“My specific passion is for the relief print. The art of printmaking is not just one impression -like a single painting or drawing. Printmaking is many impressions, thus allowing a multitude of participants to engage in a cultural tradition. As a master printmaker, I cherish this creative process the most—it is my contribution to society and it is my vision to carry forward this age-old technology to meet the print technologies of the 21stcentury”.        Emmanuel C. Montoya

Emmanuel a descendent of Lipan Apache and Mexican heritage and was born in the small south coastal town of Corpus Christi, Texas. Emmanuel is an enrolled member of the Lipan Apache Band of Texas.  For some forty-eight years Emmanuel has been a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area where he attended high school and went on to college and earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Fine Arts degree in printmaking at San Francisco State University. 

At its core, Emmanuel’s style is a collage of many influences, from: the Chicano movement of the late 1960s & 70s to the master printmakers and muralists of contemporary Mexico and Latin America, and the contemporary art movement in North America during the 1930s and 40s. When he was a young artist growing up in San Francisco, Bill Graham’s 60’s rock concert posters - with their splashing, colorful imagery and flowing text that represented the era and music of the time - had a strong creative affect on him.