Eight skeletal, 16-foot-tall Catrina figures are rising among 10,000 marigolds at the San Antonio Botanical Garden this fall, part of a new exhibition called Jardín de las Catrinas that turns the grounds into a living tableau for Día de los Muertos. The sculptures, created by San Antonio artist Regina Moya, are woven with real plants designed to shift and grow for the run of the show, which opens Tuesday and continues through November 2.
As reported by CultureMap San Antonio, the towering figures are inspired by nature, Mexican tradition, and refranes — proverbs that offer advice, share a life lesson, or express a common truth. Katherine Trumble said in a statement that Moya created living artwork that changes alongside the plants in each sculpture, calling Jardín de las Catrinas a celebration of the stories that connect us to each other and to nature, according to the same report from CultureMap.
Moya, an illustrator and writer, has revealed some of the individual Catrinas' inspirations herself. One sculpture, inspired by the refrán No todo lo que brilla es oro (Not all that glitters is gold), appears golden from a distance but reveals itself to be built entirely from discarded materials upon closer inspection, according to Regina Moya's Facebook page. Moya says she built the piece to prompt reflection on consumerism and waste.
Saris From Bangalore Meet Masks From Guerrero
Another figure draws on the saying Caras vemos, corazones no sabemos, exploring how outer attire can mask inner emotion. Per Regina Moya's account on Facebook, the dress is crafted from 14 saris imported from Bangalore, India, cut into strips as a tribute to Oaxaca's traditional traje de los tiliches, and paired with wooden masks carved by an artisan in Guerrero, Mexico.
Moya's path to monumental garden sculpture runs through a varied creative career. Before her large-scale public art, the Mexican-born artist wrote and illustrated environmental children's books commissioned by Deutsche Bank in 2012 and the non-profit Kaluz in 2013, and she wrote the play Through the Wall, staged at the Tobin Center in 2017, according to FlowerSong Press. She has also created La Perigina, a repurposed Ford E-350 church bus at the King William library, and the Dear Mom, I Love You mural at Pearl, per CultureMap's reporting.
A Fall Tradition Three Years In The Making
This is not the garden's first foray into large-scale Día de los Muertos art. The tradition began in 2023 with a 10,000-marigold display, then expanded in 2025 when Moya and botanical artist Layni Langham co-created Nana Echeri, a 16-foot living Catrina sculpture with a skirt planted with more than 100 living plants, according to Do210. This year's eight-sculpture installation marks the biggest leap yet in that three-year evolution.
It also follows the garden's 2024 outdoor art run, when Hoodline reported on colossal Huntopia sculptures by artist Hunt Slonem that placed giant rabbits and tropical birds across the 38-acre grounds. Jardín de las Catrinas is included with regular garden admission, and CultureMap reports adult tickets run $18 to $22, military admission $16 to $20, children ages 3 to 13 from $13 to $15, and a Museums for All rate of $3 for guests presenting a SNAP or WIC EBT card with valid ID.
Butterflies, Cocktails And A Date Night On The Calendar
The garden will begin themed exhibition programming on September 19, per CultureMap, with hands-on activities, a sip-and-stroll cocktail scavenger hunt, and a date night featuring live music from Nina & The Gypsies. That same day, the garden's Celebrando event will link Día de los Muertos traditions and Mexican culture with the annual autumn monarch butterfly migration through Texas, according to the San Antonio Botanical Garden. Texas lies along the primary central flyway for migrating monarchs, and additional event details are expected to be posted online as the season continues.
The skeletal Catrina figure at the heart of the exhibit carries its own century-old backstory. The character originated around 1910 when Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada created La Calavera Garbancera as a satirical cartoon mocking Mexicans who rejected their indigenous roots to adopt European fashions, and painter Diego Rivera later gave her a full body in a 1947 mural, according to The Grace Museum. Rivera depicted her holding hands with Posada in his famous Alameda Park mural.
Grounds Built On A Century-Old Quarry
The garden itself sits on land with its own layered history. Officially opened in May 1980, the 38-acre site previously served as a city limestone quarry and waterworks reservoir, built on land donated in 1899 by philanthropist George W. Brackenridge, per The Cultural Landscape Foundation. The old reservoir was repurposed into an outdoor sunken amphitheater that still anchors part of the property today.
The garden's architectural centerpiece, the 90,000-square-foot Lucile Halsell Conservatory, was completed in 1988 and designed by Argentine architect Emilio Ambasz using subterranean earth-sheltering techniques that reduced mechanical heating and cooling costs by more than 20 percent, according to Greenroofs.com. Those underground glasshouses keep tropical and desert plant collections shielded from extreme Texas summer heat year-round.
Beyond seasonal art shows, the garden has taken on a larger environmental role in the region. In April, it secured a $3 million grant to lead a five-year TREES Initiative collecting native seeds to grow and plant 50,000 trees across the flood-damaged Guadalupe River corridor, as Hoodline previously reported. Catastrophic flash flooding in July 2025 destroyed up to 90 percent of the tree canopy in parts of that watershed, underscoring the stakes behind the garden's restoration push even as its Catrinas draw visitors through the marigolds this fall.
