Once again, I am drawn to the art museums, which represent a study in the culture and relevant topics of a country. In Colombia, much of the art we see is colorful and playful. There are definite influences from Spanish colonialism, but art is also firmly rooted in the political and societal present, as interpreted by the artist. The slide show below only represents my personal favorites – those artworks that captured my interest. These paintings and sculptures were viewed in two museums: Museo de Antioquia in Medellin, which predominantly features the artwork of native painters, Fernando Botero and Pedro Nel Gomez, and La Tertulia Museum of Modern Art in Cali, which consists of three buildings, one housing a gallery of over 300 native and international works. Here we watched a contemporary artist, Jose Horacio Martinez, actually paint on canvas, in an ongoing installation, adding detailed layers to works in progress, including the walls of the museum. I really enjoyed his bright, abstract art and use of color, which featured both loose & fluid and intricate brush strokes (his work is found in the last seven images in this slide show). Notable in Botero’s work, which depict voluminously, large figures, are paintings of Pablo Escobar’s death. Disfruta!
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