Juan José Ávila Aceves "Kraeppellin" was born on February 13, 1948, in Guadalajara and died on February 13, exactly 61 years later, leaving behind a substantial body of work spanning more than 30 years of his career. His trajectory and eccentricity made him widely known in the city under the pseudonym "Kraeppellin," taken from the surname of Emil Kraeppellin, a German psychiatrist of the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, and founder of modern scientific psychiatry. Throughout his artistic and intellectual development, he combined it with other names—Juan Adrii "Kraeppellin," "Kepillín," "JF Kraeppellin," and "Juan María Lang Kraeppellin," among others—with Juan Kraeppellin being the last and most frequently used. He lived in contact with other artists and came to imprint a distinctive mark both on his work and on his person, customs and attire, defining himself as a "self-taught" and "naïve" creator, a key part of his own creation.

He made his debut as a sculptor during the 1970s, working primarily in alabaster, though also in ceramics, resins, plaster, and even plasticine, with figurative themes. In this early stage, his technique was conventional, but his subject matter was not, a theme he would later break with in a provocative and purposeful way. Thanks to his irreverent and eccentric approach, his work moved between figuration and abstraction, addressing freedom of expression, the social system, sexual freedom, and spirituality through playful, dreamlike, fantastical, and erotic passages, in both two-dimensional and sculptural pieces. He completed his artistic discourse with highly poetic titles. He was a very prolific artist, producing works in large quantities and series: his total oeuvre is estimated at around 2,500 pieces scattered across various public and private collections.