“I use my art to heal social wounds, bring communities together, and call attention to spaces where valuable work is being done and needs support.”
Cesar creates murals, public art projects, and mixed-media installations that address issues of gentrification, spirituality, acceptance, and belonging. His practice reflects and interprets the personal—his Mexican heritage and bicultural experiences—in conjunction with the collective through work that is grounded in community needs and developed through collaboration. A self-taught painter originally from Veracruz, Mexico, Viveros moved to the United States in 1997. His numerous murals appear around Philadelphia and the surrounding region, as well as in Veracruz, and his work has been installed at venues such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and Fleisher Art Memorial. In North Kensington, where he lives now, he has worked with neighbors to transform an abandoned parcel of land into a community art space and garden, continuously building on the project with new work like an eight-foot cement statue of the Aztec god Mictlāntēcutli and an underground brick oven. He has received honors and fellowships from the Fels Fund, Velocity Fund, and Independence Foundation.
