You could spend weeks darting between Mexico City’s museums and galleries; in a city with more than 200, it can be overwhelming to know where to begin. This is the newest opening to add to your Mexico City itinerary.
Before there was Studio Lazcano or her eponymous gallery in Mexico’s capital, Georgina Pounds was living in London, working in architecture. “I’m very interested in how artworks sit within a space and how they respond to the architecture,” she explains.
The British art dealer and gallery founder spent much of her early career with a focus on outdoor sculpture and sculpture parks, first assisting Damien Hirst on Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable in Venice in 2017. From then on, Georgina spent each summer inviting galleries to exhibit at the Orto Botanico Corsini Gardens in Tuscany.
In 2018, Georgina moved to Mexico, to work with Zeller y Moye and Grupo Habita on the development of Hotel Sevilla in Mérida. “The architectural practices and projects interested me in Mexico City, more so than in London,” she says. “I gradually started to miss working with artists. I moved on and became Director of Galería Hilario Galguera, and later joined OMR as Director in 2023”.
Studio Lazcano Artist’s Residency in Mexico City
Georgina’s love of working with artists led to Studio Lazcano, an artist’s residency programme that takes place in her private home in Mexico City.
For the residency, Georgina invites artists “she both meets naturally and admires” to come and work in a quiet part of Mexico City. “The residency is intentionally intimate, linking art and architecture,” she explains. “I guess my intention with Studio Lazcano is to create a setting that both invites artists for the first time to Mexico, but also to open the space to Mexico City artists, to invite collectors to see their works in a new setting, and an unusual home. And honestly, it’s also just wonderful to live with rotating art”.
The residency has previously hosted a mix of local and international artists. Last year, the Margate-based artist, Layla Andrews – whose work is currently on view at the gallery – spent some time travelling around Oaxaca City and along the Oaxacan coast to see more of the country before settling into the studio. She soon became inspired by Leonora Carrington’s works, a surrealist pioneer known for her bronze crocodile sculptures.
“Crocodiles [also] appear frequently in my work as symbols of resilience – acting as both mirror and veil, ancient witnesses to our triumphs and follies, having existed long before humans,” Layla says. “The residency is in San Ángel, a beautiful, historic part of Mexico City that feels tucked away from the busier areas. During the week it was very quiet, with lots of greenery and cobbled streets, while weekends brought lively local markets. The weather and sun determined the structure for the days. It was an incredibly peaceful place to work, and I feel very grateful to have spent time there”.
Georgina Pounds Gallery: A new opening in Roma Norte, Mexico City
In February 2026, Georgina opened her eponymous gallery, Georgina Pounds Gallery, in the lush, green Roma Norte neighbourhood, with a solo exhibition by Vanessa Raw and a group exhibition. The opening coincided with the city’s annual art week, Zona Maco, when the metropolis overflows with arts and architecture lovers. “Opening the gallery during the week of Zona Maco felt like a natural moment, when Mexico City becomes the busiest week of the Mexico City art calendar for international collectors, curators and institutions”.
The gallery space is airy and luminous, housed in an elegant palazzo-esque building with high ceilings and baroque accents. “When approaching the building, it was important to me to do so with sensitivity,” Georgina reflects. “Rather than imposing a predetermined programme, I wanted to allow the history and atmosphere of the space to guide the direction of the gallery. The rooms retain their historic names, Frida Kahlo, Nahui Ollin, Marguerite Yourcenar and Luis Cernuda”.
Monsters Paradise: The Becoming of Her Divine Beast by Vanessa Raw
For the inauguration of the gallery, Vanessa Raw’s expansive paintings for Monsters Paradise: The Becoming of Her Divine Beast exist in their own space, working in dialogue with the architecture. “The high ceilings, delicate mouldings and filtered light create a warm atmosphere that amplifies the luminous quality of her paintings,” says Georgina, “[creating] a kind of modern harmony with baroque accents”.
There’s a fluidity to the space and viewing experience – you’re invited to flow through the many rooms, in no particular order, and get lost in Vanessa’s dreamlike paintings. The paintings depict women in an Edenic lush environment, entangled in nature and with each other. “Monsters Paradise explores the moment when a woman stops trying to remain civilised and begins to reclaim the instinctual parts of herself that have been suppressed,” the artist says.
“The work invites a kind of recognition – perhaps of parts of ourselves that we’ve been taught to suppress: wildness, vulnerability, desire, rage, instinct. These forces often sit just beneath the surface of our more socially acceptable identities. At its heart, the work suggests that the boundaries between human, animal, and nature are far more fluid than we tend to believe – and that remembering this can be both unsettling and liberating”.
Alongside Vanessa’s solo exhibition, Georgina Pounds Gallery opened with a group exhibition with artists who are established, mid-career, emerging, Mexican, visiting, engaging with Mexico, living and historical. “Younger artists like MarÍa Kalach, Mónica Figueroa or Tali Lennox feel inherently connected to the rooms of the gallery. For Lennox, Mexico has subconsciously opened her practice toward a deeper sense of the ancestral and elemental, drawn to ceremonies, traditions and the layered symbolism of altars and ritual spaces. Layla Andrews and Jessica Luostarinen were both artists in residence at Studio Lazcano and now artists of the gallery”.
This spring, Georgina Pounds Gallery is welcoming two new significant exhibitions. The Universe of Sofía Bassi brings together more than 40 works by the Mexican surrealist painter who painted over 250 paintings from her prison cell in Acapulco. Alongside this, the exhibition Kati Horna and Her Friends explores the artistic community that surrounded the photographer during her years in Mexico.
“The artists exhibited are those who find inspiration in Mexico’s layered realities: history, imagination, witchcraft and everyday life. The programme unites Mexican and international artists connected to the city”.
The location of the gallery is just as intentional. Roma Norte is brimming with restaurants, independent galleries and architectural landmarks everywhere you look. On this topic, Georgina has become a pro, concluding with some words of wisdom for arty things to do if you’re in the area or wider city.
“Casa Pedregal, Casa Gilardi and Casa Gálvaz all by Luis Barragán demonstrate how light and proportion shape emotional space. Museo Anahuacalli, built in volcanic rock, draws on pre-Hispanic cosmology and elemental symbolism. Bosco Sodi’s studio and Casa Wabi Mexico City, designed by Alberto Kalach, reveal how architecture and materiality can respond directly to artistic practice. Together, these spaces show how art and architecture deepen one another. Ensure to visit them all!”
Lead image: Georgina Pounds Gallery
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