about

Jesse Mireles: Celebrated Visual Artist and Designer

Jesse Mireles is a distinguished visual artist, painter, printmaker, and graphic designer. Born in Mexico and raised in Toledo, Ohio, he developed his passion for art as a child, studying art and graphic design in high school before pursuing painting, graphics, and printmaking at the University of Toledo. During his career as a graphic designer he has earned numerous national and international awards. 

Mireles’ abstract fine art has also received national and regional honors. Art has always been at the core of his life—both as his vocation and as his purpose for being. However, it was abstract expressionism that offered him artistic freedom and sanctuary. His work blends abstract, expressionistic painting with graphic, figurative prints and collages, often exploring humanistic themes. Using his skills in block printing, lithography, and monotypes, he creates hand-drawn giclée prints, which are printed with archival-quality inks on fine art papers.

Growing up, Mireles’ influence were the colorful Mexican folk art in his home, which deeply influenced his early artistic development. As a teenager, he was inspired by the work of the iconic Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. As a young man, he was more drawn to European and American Expressionists, particularly German artist Franz Marc, whose use of vivid color and portrayal of nature resonated with him. 

Early in his career, he was passionate about his work as a young graphic designer. However, it was during this time that he began to feel the need of an escape from the rigid disciplines and formulaic demands of the craft. He began experimenting with paint, pushing the medium to its limits by mixing, scraping, brushing, and layering. His abstract expressionist style began to take shape as he embraced non-representational compositions with non-traditional tools and media.

The natural world is Mireles’ greatest source of inspiration. Whether traveling through New England, his native Mexico, the American Southwest, or the rugged coast of Maine, he finds new inspirations in landscapes, clouds, reflections and the faces of people he meets. Nature’s beauty and fragility inspire him to create art that is meant to encourage others to appreciate and protect the world on which we all depend.

Mireles has exhibited his work at prominent venues such as the Toledo Museum of Art, the National Center for Nature Photography, and various galleries. His work is represented by galleries in Ohio, California, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. He is also an active member of the art community, having lectured, consulted, and served on design and art review panels for the Toledo Arts Commission and the Ohio Arts Council.  He is also a member of the Newburyport Art Association, Rockport Art Association and Museum, and the Abstract Artist Group of New England.

In addition to his visual art, Jesse Mireles is a guitarist, singer, and songwriter, with a repertoire of songs in both English and Spanish. He is married to artist and writer Allen Mireles. Together, they have two sons: Gabriel Mireles, a singer/songwriter and community activist in Boston, and Alexander Mireles, a visual artist and web designer in Los Angeles.