7 Vans - Mario Ayala

162pp 8.5 x 11 in. Full color digital press on Prang Medium Weight Construction Paper and 100lb Satin Text 1 color screen-printed cover on 100C Colorplan Bark Lay-flat binding Essay by Patricia Restrepo, Assistant Curator & Exhibitions Manager at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Published by Colpa Press First Printing of 300, May 2026 7 Vans is Colpa's first solo publication with long-time friend and collaborator Mario Ayala. It is a travelogue, visual diary, scrapbook, video mixtape and catalog. Published on the occasion of Ayala's exhibition of the same title at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, curated by Patricia Restrepo, who contributed an essay to the publication. Mario Ayala (b. 1991, Los Angeles) reimagines a contemporary landscape where identity, observation, and the presence of material fact play equal roles. In his paintings, Ayala brings together figures and forms drawn from every corner of his experience living on the West Coast. Ayala’s work lends interest in traditions and techniques with strong visual ties to California, such as muralism, tattooing, and industrial techniques used in automobile painting and commercial signage. Ayala’s influences also extend into postwar art historical movements such as the Cool School of Los Angeles and Bay Area Funk art. Ayala’s highly personal, often surreal, tableaux are vivid representations of the way in which images course through the world, carrying with them fragments of the past, present, and a future still in formation.