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Beatriz González

Beatriz González

1932, Bucaramanga

One of Colombia’s most important living artists, Beatriz González occupies a central position in the history of contemporary Colombian art. As early as 1962 she began reinterpreting Western art’s most iconic works as a means to reflect upon ways in which high culture was assimilated in an underdeveloped country like Colombia. She elaborated a unique visual language informed by her fascination with the notion of “taste” and based on the use of found images, a bold color palette and the creation of flat compositions often carried out on unconventional supports including furniture pieces, bed covers and oversized curtains. Her unique perspective on Colombia’s popular culture and politics, became to the configuration of an artistic voice that has resonated through the art world and beyond.

“Beyond the apparent domesticity of many works by González, or perhaps precisely within that domesticity, her work breathes an inevitable destiny towards a testimonial vocation; but not towards a painting of great events and heroic actions, commonly known as historical painting, but rather to a domestic painting, inspired by a common history, by community; a painting that would conceive history fairly and radically, as one of our domestic issues, and thus, also a tragic one.”

Luis Pérez-Oramas

*Photograph by Oscar Monsalve

 

Works