CARMEN ERAZO [Chile]

Afrikanske gudinder

Chilean painter Carmen Erazo’s acrylic compositions always begin with a figure representing the African woman, who unites the traits of Earth mother and goddess. Accordingly, many of her elongated forms depict women wrapped in patterned and brightly colored dresses against virtually abstract backdrops of cool blues and stylized landscapes. Elsewhere, figuration dissolves into quasi-pointillist arrangements of large circles, ovals and other shapes, which might coalesce briefly for the viewer into recognizable silhouettes before flickering away again into abstraction.

Throughout her excursions into the possibilities of figuration and abstract expressionism, the Santiago-based painter varies her palette and style of brushwork dramatically, developing an unmistakable aesthetic. In certain compositions Erazo applies paint liberally, with broad, rough brushstrokes, while elsewhere the application is extremely careful, the textures more smooth. Each piece has a distinct rhythm and temperature, the result of gentle turquoises playing against searing burgundy, and bright oranges against hazy white. Viewers are transported into this playful, elemental landscape that is at once new and ancient.

Artist Statement

Two main themes are interwoven in the subjects of my paintings: Africa, the place where the evolution of man took place, and woman, who is the origin of the development of humanity. Africa offers colors and textures, huge open spaces, movements, migrations, contrasts. Africa has created long-boned, stylized, agile people, dancers, nomads. Africa is a feast of color. The woman of ancient times becomes a Goddess, when she can create what doesn’t exist. To be a goddess is a self-proclaimed but deserved position. She invents everything, improvising and persisting in that which gives results.
How to protect, how to perpetuate, how to be capable of foreseeing the needs to respond on time. This ability of foreseeing has intuition as its daughter. Goddesses, feast of love