The exhibition Ritual Reality contemporary art by Piurawhich opened last week in Madrid (Spain), brings together works by 19 painters who work and exhibit in various rooms and galleries in Peru and abroad. They belong to different generations with diverse artistic tendencies. For the most part, the artists mentioned are focused on figuration, but with a personal interpretation of reality.
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The paintings carry with them the seal that marks the geography and climate of their place of origin: desert, sun, rain and vegetation. Such is the case of Francisco Mauricio’s painting that keeps in mind the vegetation, the stones and the poetic nature of reality.
Another important aspect within the conception of the works is the historical fact of having the first city founded by the Spanish (Tangarará). In such a way that the Spanish heritage and the ancestral Tallán culture live in us, this coexists as if it were an oxymoron, a peaceful rebellion that somehow emerges in the paintings.
The works are linked to historical aspects, legends and important characters from the mystical world of the Piura region. Thus, works have been presented such as the lizard gold by Antonio Peralta, the Apu puma by Rodrigo Pezantes. The first alludes to the saurians that in times past were common to see in the Turicarami River, now the Chira River, and the second shows the great respect felt for these beasts to the point of representing them on ceramics.
Other paintings represent shamans or healers, who are characters who embody mysticism, ancestral wisdom in the use of plants accompanied by rituals with invocations and litanies.
Not only is this mystical character present, but so is the animistic belief that is represented in an owl with human appearance that attempts to speak of the wisdom and vigilance that is believed to still exist in the sacred spaces of the region.
With the reverence and respect with which these themes deserve to be worked, Piuran painters compose their works and capture them with lines, colors and textures.
Social reality is also the subject of artists such as Arcadio Boyer, Kayo and Wilmer Lalupú. They capture the social reality of their towns with overwhelming and sublime painting. For example, Lalupú, who paints from his workshop in the Montecastillo town center (Catacaos), captures in his canvases the daily struggle of peasants to get ahead with their families.
And while everything changes in the world, art evolves and reaches unthinkable limits and questions are asked about what role man will play in the near future, these painters continue to cling to the importance of man, his environment, history and his suffering. This work is also done in “classic” art materials: canvas, oil paints and thinner. In this aroma “from the past” these works of art emerge that have been macerated in the historical past, geography and cultural and historical wealth.
With this work, the 19 visual artists from Piura come to this room in Spain, accompanied by two artist friends from Trujillo (Peru): Adolfo Asmat and Socorro Morac, managers of this cultural journey and whom they thank for promoting this presentation on another continent.
The exhibitors are Arcadio Boyer, Hernán Pauta, Francisco Mauricio, Agustín Aquino Mejías, José Zeta, Claudio Olaya (Kayo), Paulino Ipanaqué, Juan Félix Saldarriaga (Salmo), Rodolfo López, Juan Sánchez, Ángel Suárez, Julio César Calle, Rodrigo Pezantes , Catherine Valladares, José Antonio Peralta, Juan Carlos Boyer (Boch), Wilmer Lalupú, Russbelt Guerra, Richard Arévalo, Milagritos Chapilliquén, Célica Ávila and Alexander Rugel.
