2020 – 2021

Through the observation of unconscious symbolism, I look for the mythologies that originate a queer vision of the world with a tropical sensibility. On behalf of an ideal future, I do not paint myths but aim to reveal the connections they envision.

Trident, 2020, oil on linen, 20 3/4″ x 9″
Young Leaf Prematurely Falling (Verde aún entre las verdes ramas, se seca) 2020, oil on linen, 10 1/2″ x 3″
Queer Mangrove (Manglar Marica), 2020, oil on linen, 17″ x 7 1/4″

Sacrum, 2020, Oil on linen, 4 1/2″ x 3″

My art is tropical as it doesn’t intend to represent reality but to tangle in it. It celebrates sexuality, looks for material and conceptual diversity, and exists due to the interconnectivity of the immaterial world as a non-object. My practice is informed by the work of Pre-Columbian goldsmith masters as much as queer culture and contemporary art practices.

Incarnation (Encarnación), 2020, beach sand on linen, 9 1/2″ x 11 1/2″

Temple, 2020, Oil on linen, 14 1/2″ x 10 1/2″

Forbidden Fruit (Fruto Prohibido), 2020, oil on linen, 8 1/4″ x 7 1/2″
Altar Piece (Pieza de Altar), 2020, oil on linen, 6 1/4″ x 5 3/4″
The Tongue of the Sea, 2020, oil and marble dust on linen, 9″ x 9″

With my art I look for connecting the universes I am part of, the stories I have lived, and to expand the visible world. As an artist I’m urgent to decolonize the cultural identity I inherited and I’m equally keen on visualizing the nature of the ecosystems that give me life. I do that by following the intuition, the knowledge, and the community-oriented sensibility of the matrilineality to which I belong.

Wonderer Among the Sea of Fog (El Caminante Entre el Mar de Nubes), 2020, resin on polymeric film, 5″ x 7 1/2″
 Riverbed (Lecho), 2020, beeswax, oil, and bronze paint on linen, 9 1/2″ x 10″
Ray of black light (Rayo de luz negra), 2020, oil and resin on linen, 7″ x 2 1/2″
Canoe(Canoa) 2020, oil and resin on linen, 9 1/4″ x 3 1/4″
Human Bone (Hueso Humano), 2020, oil on linen, 7/8″ x 1″

Aurora (aurora), 2020, acrylic and crackle paste on linen, 10 3/4″ x 9 3/4″

My paintings are meant to be part of interior spaces where people can see them as they come through life. They are open iconographies, permanently twined with the wall behind them, their place in the world, and the universe around them. They shed light into the unwritten narratives that recount the past of my humanity, exposing the dignity of my present as a queer person from the tropics, and imagining the future of the world I am helping to construct.

Cultural Statement

In my efforts of seeing the nuances of my own artistic vision I look for understanding the ecosystems that sustain my own life, recognizing their most distinctive features. I inform my practice with the sensibility and the knowledge with which Colombian peoples fabricate communities. I’m a queer non-binary person who comes from a matrilineality where technical knowledge is daily being passed to the next generation in the form of all sorts of empirical experience: vernacular arquitectural techniques, elaborated handmade cooking, symbolic relationships to plants and animals, resourceful strategies to face scarcity, preference for long processes and resistance to oppression. I use this sensibility to built my own identity and the world I want to live in. 

In the Tropical Andean region, land is lush and fertile.  The tropics are like a pelvic belt that surrounds our planet staying lavish and generous throughout the year, providing flowers, food, sun light and stable conditions for animals, plants and peoples. Near the Equator, where entire civilizations have emerged, the sun rises all year long at 6:00am in the morning and sets at 6:00pm in the afternoon. Within this monotony and stability, a closer relationship with nature occurs. Interconnectivity between animals, plants and humans is palpable. Even today, there are not as much concerns about the weather, as there are about the frail balance among every organism with which we all share the generosity of the cosmos. In the tropics the difficulties are based on conciliating way too many forms of life. 

There’s a vision of the world that emerges from these particular circumstances. Millenia ago, when these conditions were experienced at the peak of its possibilities, indigenous cultures in South America and the Caribbean flourished. For at least two thousand years, the Tayronas, Quimbayas, and Muiscas, among other Pre-columbian peoples mastered the art of the lost-wax method to create powerful votive figures and imagery. They utilized the most malleable of all metals as a liquid capable to connect and to conciliate the material and the immaterial world. Their artistic legacy is a metaphor of the fluidity with which this sensibility still connects our present with our past, informing our symbolic imagination.