Sculptor Raul De Lara is transforming everyday objects into powerful statements about identity and belonging through his first solo museum exhibition in Texas. Running through January 11, 2026, at the Contemporary Austin, the exhibition showcases De Lara's highly technical woodworking skills as he reimagines tools, plants, and furniture into anthropomorphic and surreal forms that serve as vessels of memory, resilience, and humor.
The exhibition features seven new sculptures crafted from mesquite, walnut, cedar, and oak, all created specifically for his hometown show after immigrating to the United States at age twelve. De Lara's works offer pointed reflections on the immigrant experience, queer identity, and the uncertain reality of living under DACA status—the temporary U.S. policy that provides young undocumented immigrants protection from deportation and work authorization, but without a path to permanent residency or citizenship.
De Lara's artistic practice is deeply rooted in both Mexican and American traditions of making. Trained in Austin and later at Virginia Commonwealth University, he honors traditional woodworking techniques while experimenting with scale, humor, and magical realism. His sculptures range from saints carved out of branches to furniture reimagined with uncanny detail. "Growing up, I would see craftsmen carve these saints out of branches," he recalls. "I always wonder, like, at what point does the branch become a saint?" This threshold between the ordinary and the sacred, the native and the foreign, and the tool and the symbol is where his work finds its deepest resonance.
The new works on display reference wildflowers native to both Texas and northern Mexico, including Damianita, Indian Blanket, and Sleepy Daisy. Their dual botanical origins serve as a powerful parallel to the artist's own exploration of cultural hybridity and contested belonging. "Why can plants be native to two places, but never people?" he asks. By embedding this provocative question into wood and form, the New York-based artist transforms sculpture into a stage for negotiating identity and precarity.
For De Lara, the act of sharing remains central to his artistic practice. "Some of the best works are the ones that, when you share yourself, you really get beyond just the object," he explains. "When you can connect with people in that way—thinking that our work can make people feel a sense of care, or want to care—that's enough." In Austin, his newly commissioned sculptures invite audiences to engage with beauty while confronting difficult questions about who gets to belong, how stories are carved into materials, and why plants are granted a dual nativity that is denied to people.
The artist describes this project as the most complex of his career, acknowledging both its technical and emotional challenges. "Honestly, this show—they're the most layered, and they have the capacity to fail. Pulling one off is a miracle, and I have, like, six miracles to do," he shares. This balance of rigor and risk directly reflects the precariousness of his legal and social position under DACA. "My legal standing here—if the law changed tomorrow, that would be a different exhibition. It's a reality I could not even make my own show," he admits.
Through these remarks, the material and political aspects of his work fuse together, as woodworking becomes both a technical dance with fire and a powerful metaphor for living in limbo. His sculptures, including pieces like "Cavale II" from 2023 and work created for Hermès' new Aspen Boutique window display, demonstrate how art can address complex social and political realities while maintaining aesthetic beauty and technical excellence. The exhibition stands as a testament to how contemporary artists are using traditional craft techniques to explore urgent questions about immigration, identity, and belonging in modern America.
