David Zamora Casas

David Zamora Casas (born 1960) is a Mexican-American visual artist, performance artist, and community activist based in San Antonio, Texas who has been active since 1985. His work addresses his identity as a gay Chicano artist and explores themes of androgyny, queerness, and redefining traditional Mexican art. Casas is a self-described "artivist" who creates paintings, installations, altars, and performance works.

When Annette Dimeo Carlozzi asked the artist how his public persona developed, Zamora Casas replied: "it evolved through my discovery of my gay voice. And my coming out came through a lot of sacrifice. I wanted my voice to be the 'first voice' that said, 'I am a Chicano, this is what Chicano art is; I am gay, this is what gay art is.' All these perspectives, not limited to any specific one. This is my reality, my identity, my art."

Picante, the artist's window installation at ArtPace (2010), was described as: "Rooted in the Mexican tradition of Catholic home devotional altars and inspired by the San Antonio landscape, Picante fuses Aztec imagery and magical realism, whimsically reflecting on both global and personal concerns."

Chicano art scholar Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, who wrote an influential essay about rasquachismo (the rasquache sensibility in Chicano culture) described Casas's paintings as a "mix word and image to visualize autobiographical and universal stories of homoerotic love, loss and persistent social concerns including immigration, environmental plunder, gender disparity and the multiple issues facing marginalized individuals and communities."

In 2024, Casas created an installation called Altar for the Spirit of Rasquachismo: Homenaje a Tomás Ybarra Frausto for the Xicanx exhibition at Blue Star in San Antonio. The artist refers to this as a “Día de los Muertos inspired – and subverted – altar.” Ybarra-Frausto's rasquachismo essay, which addressed the underdog creators who utilized objects at hand, "articulated the things I felt in real life, it was a eureka moment,” said the artist. “It was an undeniable reflection of my experiences and those of the Mexican-origin community. He made these things tangible and real.” Casas also dedicated this altar to Dudley Brooks, Ybarra-Frausto's long-time partner, who died shortly before the exhibition opened. Casas recalls: “When I was growing up, jotos y manfloras [Chicano/a queers and lesbians] were not represented with dignity. Tomás and Dudley served as inspiration. They were role models, people we looked up to. They were professionals, respectable citizens in our society, as well as loving, caring individuals.”

A Casas installation devoted to the musician Selena called "Selena's Cosmic House of Consciousness" is featured in the exhibition “The Selena Effect" at the Wittliff Collections, Texas State University in 2025.