Art collection, Aire y agua

INTRO

AIRE Y AGUA

“Air and Water” is an art collection whose purpose is to create a space for reflection on the need to protect two elements vital to the preservation of life: air and water. It features a selection of more than 21 previously unseen works created in recent decades by the renowned painter Oscar Alzate; The exhibition focuses on the delicate balance within which precious aquatic ecosystems coexist throughout Colombia, and on the urgent need to protect them.
Oscar Alzate, 1951-2018

ARTIST AND WORK

The Narrative

The corpus of works of this collection are the works created by the artist during his last 20 years of life, whose theme is the biodiversity of three fundamental ecosystems of the planet: the paramo, the jungle and the mangrove. The narrative will be the water’s path from its source in the highest paramos, passing through the sub-paramos, jungle swamps and ending in the tangled mangrove, where the water that nourishes the ocean will finally flow.

The "Páramo"

A majestic landscape of the Sumapaz paramo introduces the exhibition, highlighting this ecosystem’s atypicality, rarely approached by landscape painters, followed by the painting series of the "mazorca de agua", an intricate plant with large leaves found in the sub-paramos.

The Jungle

The "Mazorca de agua" allows us to follow the path of the water going down to reach the rivers and jungle pools, such as those that are the habitat for the majestic "Victoria Regia", an aquatic plant that deserves a vibrant series of paintings.

The Mangrove

The exhibition route, like the water, flows into the mangrove, another atypical ecosystem in the landscape that slowly reveals itself before our eyes, and takes shape and meaning only when we dedicate a moment of contemplation to the brushstrokes and the infinite tones that conform it.

Oscar Alzate

•Beginings

From the beginning of the 21st century, Óscar Alzate committed his art to two essential elements of nature: air and water. His paintings focused on three iconic plants of Colombia’s ecosystems: the water corn plant, the Victoria regia, and the mangrove. Through these subjects, Alzate reflected on the fragility of nature and the threats posed by deforestation, resource exploitation, and global warming. His work became a visual testimony to a changing planet. As he expressed: “Perhaps when our grandchildren look at my paintings, they will say: This is what the Earth was like before.” Óscar Alzate (1951–2018)

Studies

Óscar Alzate studied art at the Departmental School of Arts, the Art District School, and the National University, where he continued his studies until 1973. After becoming increasingly interested in exploring other forms of artistic expression, he devoted himself to photography and experimented with film, a challenging medium at the time. In 1977, he decided to dedicate himself fully to painting. He later traveled to Paris, where he lived for two years and continued developing his artistic vision. Upon returning to Colombia, he was awarded a scholarship to study restoration in Peru. After completing the course, he returned to Colombia and continued dedicating himself to painting and developing his artistic work.

Life and work

•Exhibitons

Óscar Alzate participated in group exhibitions in various places until, in 1979, he held his first solo exhibition at the Banco de la República. He later exhibited in two galleries in Bogotá that no longer exist, Ibarra and San Diego. At the same time, he worked with a gallery in Paris called L’Oeil de Bœuf, which invited him to present a solo exhibition.

www.oscaralzate.com

Comments

...some writings about Alzate's work.

Together, the works generate a feeling of deep intimacy with the dense vegetation, allowing us to explore the infinite shades and shapes that make up these natural scenes. Alzate's paintings allow us in a certain way to decompose space and study the intricate system on which the wild vegetation of these places is built. Investigation 2017.

ANA MARIA GUERRERO

As if the moon and the sun illuminated the earth and the air, all this almost sacred luminosity and a mythological atmosphere shows us in a poetic and creative way the work of the master Alzate, who visits the forgotten places on which the survival of all depends. Master Alzate continues his protest. -2021-

GLORIA TRIANA

Oscar Alzate's painting process indicates a constancy that brings him ever closer to excellence in storytelling. His care progressively refers to the ability to make us believe in the truth of the rags and surfaces with which these dolls are made. The need to obtain absolute verisimilitude drives him to take more and more care of the trade. Not prompted by the will to lick surfaces. On the contrary, he wants us to realize the grotesque farce around which the existence of so many of us revolves.
Taken from the writing of his first exhibition. -1979-

GALAOR CARBONELL

The Andean landscape reaches an intimate dimension in those paramunos or sabaneros fragments that enhance the humid vegetation of mosses and frailejones, sometimes seen through the window or as an autonomous entity, and always with a discreet palette of subtle and poetic colors.
Taken from: DACONTE, Marceles Eduardo
- The Resources of the imagination. -2010-

EDUARDO MARCELES DACONTE

I really like its landscapes with native flora. Those of moor and river. In them Óscar made a synthesis of the flora in the various layers of our ecosystems. The Andes are there very well sheltered by his balanced gaze. It is in these horizontal formats that his sensitivity and his naturalistic vocation are evident. -2021-

MIGUEL ÁNGEL ROJAS

AIRE Y AGUA

Appreciation

The scenes that are presented in each of the paintings evoke a virgin world, in which the trace of human beings has had no impact. The earthy, green and violet tones make up a quasi-prehistoric, exuberant and impenetrable vision. In this sense, paintings have the ability to transport us to a temporality contrary to that of the contemporary world.

When contemplating these ancient species that appear to possess the territory they inhabit, we are confronted with the extensive cycles in which nature operates. Alzate's work invites us to reflection and contemplation, to devote an attentive look to the details that make up each of the pieces, to truly understand the process on which its forms are built. -Ana María Guerrero.