Marcus Xavier Chormicle

Man Down

1/8 Risograph prints currently on view at made from an archive of my grandfather’s time in the Chaparral Gunfighters, a troop of actors who performed across the Southwest. My grandpa Hoyt, was a bronc rider, construction worker and a soldier drafted into the Vietnam war despite being enrolled at NMSU in the horticulture program. After being forced to participate in the state sponsored violence in Vietnam he returned to the desert and repeatedly performed his own death against the backdrop of colonial violence of the SW. I project a catharsis onto this act. During this time he met my grandmother and raised her children, including my mother. My paternal grandfather, Donny, an Agua Caliente Cahuilla man, was killed by the police in NM during this same time. In these work I isolate the violent act that defined the lives of both my grandfathers, both good, honest and humble men, trapped in the US’ system of violence.

New work on view at

These photographs respond to an archive of photographs that include images of my maternal grandfather participating in the Chaparral Gunfighters, a troop of actors who traveled the SW reenacting the historic violence of the Wild West. I assume postures that may have been taking by him as well as my paternal grandfather who was shot by police in Las Cruces and died as a result in the 70s. My performance captures me in free fall alongside my grandfather’s. I play out their deaths, both real and performed.

Thank you Samantha Vo-Limón and Corbin Rouette for assisting me in the production of this work 🤎🌞

New work for my upcoming exhibition “Man Down” opening at tonight in San Antonio, 7-11pm, alongside “Roots in Our Memory” by Raul Rodriguez

These exhibitions bring together Marcus Xavier Chormicle and Raul Rodriguez, two artists who expand photography beyond documentation, using it to excavate memory across the borderlands of the Southwest. Rooted in personal archive and regional history, their practices examine how images carry the weight of family lineage, labor, migration, and inherited narratives. Moving between documentary impulse and material intervention, both artists position the photograph as more than a record; it becomes a site where private memory and public history converge.

For this exhibition I’ve made new photographs alongside interventions in an archive of photographs of the Chaparral Gunfighters, including my grandfather.

Chaparral Gunfighter 6, Risograph Print, Edition of 3

Excited to be including in “Topographies of Self” a virtual group exhibition through the Griffin Museum of Photography

Link in bio to view

The self takes shape through collective geography as much as through fragmented memories and private imaginaries. The exhibition, Topographies of Self, features works from 65 artists examining our multilayered connection to place through photographic portraiture. Selected from over 240 global submissions, the works challenge, intertwine, and even mystify ideas of identity through location. Together, they bring people into close proximity and friction with the cultural codes and personal mythologies that characterize our understanding of (a) place. We stand at a nebulous crossroad. These “portraits of place” suggest an incomplete cartography: an expanse without an end or borders, a map that will be redrawn again and again. We invite you to look at these images not in search of answers or a monolith. Rather, this exhibition is a textured roadmap for navigating a topography of the self that is inherently tectonic, shifting slowly yet with great force across place, time and psyche.

Featuring: Alexander Brauer, Amy Parrish, Angela Rowlings, Aubree Lourdes Guilbault, Aylin Kizil, Bonnie Providence, Brandon Holland, Carter Kim, Caterina Maina, Chelsea Wong, Christopher López, Clair Robins, Connor Archambault, David Tucker II, Ebuka Mordi, Edward Hernandez, Eliza Ollinger, Eric Esteves, Evie Hansford, Huda Abdulmughni, Imoutta, Ishan Jadhav, Jaiya Rose, Jeff Tidwell, Joan Piekny, Joshua Mokry, Julie Pawlowski, Katelynn M. Rogers, Long Xi Vlessing, Lucía Alonso Garrido, Makele White, Malik Fabian-Mahmud, Marcus Xavier Chormicle, Maryam al-Khasawneh, Matt Roberts, Maurice Wolf, Melanee Brown, Michael Young, Naomi Bujdei, Natalia Poniatowska, Niki Stevens, Nina Nelson, Nina Tanujaya, Norfatihah Yusof, Omar Reyna, Paulo Monteiro, Rajesh Dhar, Raquel Trejo, Roger Archibald, Ronald D. Butler, Ruken Delal Yildiz, Sara Swaty, Sean Niu, Shang Salah, Shrvan Mandal, Stephen Clay, Tatiana Bulanova, Tebogo Losaba, Theodore Pasquale, Trần Quỳnh Nhi, Vaibhav Bhardwaj, Victoria Manzoli, Virginia Hine