I am using the language of cultural identity and Western modern in the contemporary. I am exploring the art history of traditional folklore to index the iconography that speaks about the socio-cultural structure that existed in the highland Peru. I am intersecting the visual language to speak on cultural inheritance submerged in the American modern and how it feels within contemporary culture. I think of the traditional representation of the figure that is influenced by the western art and the transformation into geometric form and to let the viewer think about the disruption that happens between this traditional forms.

Maria del Pilar Arrieta

Attached II

I am inspired by the visual aesthetics from Peruvian pre-Columbian art like the Wari Textile Tunics. The bold colors and patterns visible in the textiles speak on their socio-cultural structure from life in the 500AD in the highland Peru. I am indexing the symbols and iconography in my paintings to lead my work to the political conversation with topics on how to live through cultural survivance in the contemporary. My works are explores the language from cultural identity with the Western modern to think on how to subvert the idea from old western and how to maintain cultural inheritance through traditional customs.

Ranges

In my painting Renaissance, I bring ideas of dualism and transformation rooted in the language of the ancient Andean art with cultural identity in the contemporary. Duality express in the way of a cultural structure in this piece, not as a gender, but in the way to think of two opposite places that I lived in. Using the two figures mirroring I think in my work on the unsettling between the piece and the viewer in a way to reflect on the past and the present. I am narrating stories indexing pre-Columbian iconography that remind me where I come from and how I  maintain alive the continuity of my cultural inheritance.

Renaissance

This painting talks about the resilience, the vulnerability, and the empathy of human conditions. I am inspired by artist from Western renaissance and the studies of the human figure with the painting The Three Graces. Renaissance artist Paul Rubens informs in my work how the portrayal of the radiance, the joy and the nature of human life was a living form of expression in the renaissance, and how I can use these references within the modern to express the ambiguity of what it means todays experiencing the uncertain, the grief, and the anxiety in the way we struggle conditions of life today. I am using the language from cultural identity with modern geometric forms; and the figurative self-portrait to talk in the contemporary. The three self-portraitures resemble the metaphors from living different perspectives and I want to the viewer to feel the connection of the sensibility with the realities of what is to live today.

Three Graces

I emphasize the glimpses from life, socio-culture, and the diaspora within the communities that I make part of in the contemporary culture. In this painting, I made a representation of a female portrait seemingly floats above the ocean and is submerged in a setting of patterns and blocks. I use references of modern geometric art, and the forms and shapes that inform the pre-Columbian art. I am narrating stories from experiences of the diaspora highlighting stories on life experiences within cultural tradition and how those experiences feel submerged in American culture. The ambiguity of ideas let me subvert some of the oppression from societal norms and the urge to talk about the nostalgic, and the unconscious to sense of awareness on the unsettling with the subject matter.

Forces of Nature

In my painting I overlap the figurative with geometric shapes to create landscapes that narrate stories from the present in contemporary culture. I am indexing the geometric shapes that appears in pre-Columbian art but also mirror the geometric abstraction from modern art. I am using the representation form of the female portrait to emphasize cultural identity through gender, race, and survivance; to open a conversation in the contemporary diaspora.

Girl in the Rose Pants

I am using the language of the modern art with cultural identity to merge narratives where the figurative and the geometric shapes are intersecting. My painting is a representation of the female figure within the gender role and its position in the Latino portrayal. The painting of a female talks about the youngest and the celebration of the liveliness. I am using the allegories from the Western renaissance of the goodness and the beauty to attempt to connect with the allures through the expressions of the self.

Young Lady with Flowers

In this painting I navigate through the language of ancient Andean art thinking in resemblance of history, dance, and folkloric art and how tradition is merged in contemporary culture. Through this ambiguity, I am using visual aesthetics merged with modern abstraction to reflect on how the beauty and energy of traditional culture is merged in contemporary art.

Duality of Dance

This painting is a representation of two female portraitures overlapped in a set of patterns and geometric abstraction. In my work, I use the imagery from experiences and stories indexing traditional art and Western modern that can lead to a political conversation. My painting let me reflect about the agency in female portrayal in contemporary culture, within race, migration, and displacement.

Maria del Pilar Arrieta

collection: Fine art

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