Art and design of the Amazon meet at CAF Gallery

Artistic expressions within the concepts of object, nature, and cosmos, symbolically linked with activity, the environment, and culture of the people of the Amazon region, may be observed starting on March 11th at CAF Gallery. 

Amazonía arte y diseño (Amazon art and design) is the name of the exhibition that registers the attributes of this geographic area, showing the value of creativity in Latin American contemporary art, which originated in a primitive universe, whose most ancient traditions may still be felt, and where cultural interrelations may be clearly observed at its most natural level. 

Enrique Garcia, Executive President of the Institution, stated, "With this show, CAF, Development Bank of Latin America, brings the cultural heritage of the Amazon basin closer to the citizens of the region. This exhibition is a modern expression that contributes, from a different perspective, to the promotion of the cultural identity and integration of the Latin American people".  

Six Latin American artists and 18 Venezuelan creators generate a visual round  that shows different expressions of creativity in the face of a landscape that maybe we all carry internally. This global perspective provided a wider dimension to a research started by Verónica Liprandi and Patricia Morales, whose objective was to promote reflection and the incorporation of indigenous models from the Amazon region to the Venezuelan stereotype, with the work of local contemporary artists and designers, with the added interest of recognizing the work of anthropologist Alejandro Signi, Director of the Museo Etnológico de Amazonas Enzo Ceccarelli de Puerto Ayacucho (Ethnology Museum of the Amazon Enzo Ceccarelli of Puerto Ayacucho) for 28 years.

Mariela Provenzali, curator at CAF Gallery stated, "The exhibition Amazon art and design expanded the sphere of participation to other Latin American artists of the Amazon region, in an experience of creative synchronicity starting from the image of the "great jungle" as a subject to reflect upon, whether by interpreting the landscape, by incorporating symbolic elements, or the use of materials ancestrally used by autochthonous communities. In the works that make up the exhibition, there is a creative seed as if there was an "unconscious" that equally supports the primitive culture production and the most contemporary culture, generating an esthetic connection between them". 

International artists include Dicken Castro, Colombian architect who is one of the fathers of graphic design in his country. His fascination with symbols, which he discovered in ancestral cultures and popular expressions, make his logotypes, seals, and marks unforgettable for Colombians. At the same time, Ecuadorean graphic designer Paula Barragán, aims her work toward the original and basic source of design: nature, She works on the interpretation of a figurative jungle where she seeks to recover "a jungle that bustles with energy, a realm full of insects, plants, and animals that multiply by the miracle of light, chlorophyll, and water, knitting the network of life to which we belong". 

In the work of Peruvian painter Ivana Ferrer, the search for the purest essence of things prevails: the wealth of everyday life andthe footprint of time on matter. The exhibition will include works from Bolivian painter Oscar Pantoja (†), master of lyric abstractionism, who left as legacy a work that recreates visual atmospheres of a poetic universe that could refer to the sacred relation between earthly and emotional matters. Eliana Sevillano, Bolivian painter, is recognized for the management of color and de-constructive collage forms. Finally, Brazilian artist Domingos Tótora stands out not only for the purity of his final work but also for his creative process. 

Venezuelan artists and designers who participated included; Anita Reyna, Bernardo Mazzei, Carlos Qintana, Hernán Rodriguez, Jefferson Quintana, Lourdes Silva, Luis Arroyo, Luis Villamizar, María Eugenia Dávila y Eduardo Portillo, Maison 203, María Esther Barbieri, Mercedes Carvallo, Nanín García, Pepe López, Rodolfo Agrella, Vicente Antonorsi, Yolanda Sucre, and Yoshi.

Patricia Morales and Verónica Liprandi, leaders of Factotum stated, "The call to 18 Venezuelan artists and designers and six international artists has allowed us to explore the limits between design, crafts, and art; the challenges of today's design, and industrial production versus "hand made"; individual creation, authorship and collaboration; the importance of the registry, preservation, and transmission of culture that continuously changes, and the need to open a space for introspection from the other's point of view".

When cataloguing the objects of the Signi Collection in venezuela, together with the vision of the other countries that share the Amazon, the permanent and recurrent presence of three universes stands out: the human, the natural, and the supernatiural, through three cores defined by function, esthetics, and meaning, which may be perceived throughout the tour of the CAF Gallery.