Francisco Daniel Cabrera Mijo, born in 1989.
Francisco Daniel Cabrera (Mijo)
Francisco Daniel Cabrera, affectionately known as Mijo, was born in 1989 in Cuenca, Ecuador. He moved to East Hampton, New York, at the age of 15, where he continues to live and work. Entirely self-taught, he is known for his use of thermal materials in his abstract expressionist paintings, and symbolic representations of Latino/x/e archetypes in new surrealist forms.
In 2024 alone, Cabrera’s work has already been featured in two notable solo exhibitions and is set to appear in nearly a dozen group shows by December. His first solo exhibition of the year Chemical (Paradise) was presented in a month-long showcase at the esteemed Arts Center at Duck Creek in East Hampton, NY, from May to June. Just two weeks later, he premiered his second large-scale solo exhibition Shape of Non-Beings at the Geri Bauer Gallery in the Hampton Library (Bridgehampton, NY), which ran from June to July.
Even with overlapping show dates, Cabrera introduced an entirely different medium, style, and subject matter in his second solo exhibition—transitioning from abstract expressionist representations of immigration in thermal mediums to figurative depictions of beings and circus creatures on massive wall-sized canvases. This contrast showcases his versatility as an artist skilled not only in oil painting but also in acrylics, chemical alchemy, and hand-carved wooden sculpture.
In 2023, his Receipt Paintings series was featured in SOMOS: We Are Latinx Artists, a three-month exhibition at the Long Island Museum in New York. These works, created on gas station receipt paper and using hand sanitizer as a medium, explore themes of immigration, chemical dependencies, and the volatility of a life spent pursuing the American Dream. Cabrera unveils a vibrant world beneath a seemingly uniform white surface, mirroring the often overlooked lives of the immigrant working class in the Hamptons.
He was an artist-in-residence at the Southampton Arts Center from 2018-19, where he operated a pop-up studio in the public gallery. There, he was filmed by PBS, appearing in the series "All Arts Doc" airing on June 26, 2019. He was also featured on an episode of Interesting People on Long Island in 2021.
In March 2024, he was listed as one of the top Hamptons creators to follow on social media and, in 2019, was the first artist featured in the article 5 Hamptons Artists You’ve Got to Check Out. The former Director of the Southampton Arts Center and now Chief Creative Officer at Guild Hall Museum, described him as follows:
"East Hampton–based artist Daniel Cabrera has a young Picasso vibe,
both artistically and personally. He often employs unexpected materials
in inventive, yet practical ways, and the range of works he produces
is impressively wide."
— Amy Kirwin, artistic director, Southampton Arts Center
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