Rosa Elena Curruchich was a Maya Kaqchikel artist. Curruchich’s works exemplify her desire to document, through meticulously detailed paintings, the daily life, traditional customs, religious festivities, and artisanal work of her Indigenous community, such as the production of candles, bread, kites, and perrajes (blankets). The miniature format of Curruchich’s work responds to the fact that much of her work was done in secret. The paintings’ small size also allowed her to discreetly transport them during Guatemala’s violent civil war period (1960–1996). Rather than offering exoticised images produced for tourist consumption, her paintings pay attention to the role of women within the local Indigenous social organisation and acknowledge the value of care work. In each painting, she included a small text describing the characters and their actions. Curruchich’s images tell her own personal history while reclaiming the transformational power of communal work.
This is the first time the work of Rosa Elena Curruchich is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Miguel Lopez
