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We highly recommend watching this one if possible as Violeta Parra’s works are so breathtaking and impactful:
➩ ➪ ➩ ➪ https://youtu.be/g0vESB_nKvE
This month, we dive into Violeta Parra’s (1917-1967) multifaceted legacy with her biographer, Ericka Verba.
You can find Ericka’s book, “Thanks to Life” on her website: www.erickaverba.com as well as more Violeta Parra resources.
Violeta’s artistic journey has many parallels to Frida Kahlo’s: both artists began painting while bedridden; drew from their personal experience with the folk arts of their country, Frida in Mexico and Violeta in Chile.
They both lived and worked during a time when their respective countries were at a crossroads and made it their mission to capture the folk culture of their countries:
Frida with a paint brush and Violeta through song, poem, painting and arpilleras (embroidery).
And while most of us have only heard of Frida Kahlo, both artists achieved international fame in their lifetime and their legacies continue to this day.
Violeta Parra became the first Latin American artist (period) to have a solo exhibition at the Louvre in Paris in 1964 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
And more recently, her arpilleras were featured in the 2022 Venice Biennale “Milk of Dreams” which also featured some Art Slice favorites like Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Dorothea Tanning, to name a few.
While she was putting her own twist on this traditional folk medium during her lifetime, arpilleras took on a much different meaning under the brutal, US-backed Pinochet dictatorship several years (1973-1990) after her sudden death (suicide) in 1967:
They became a protest symbol and tool of resistance against the regime for Chilean women, as well as a way for them to grieve their disappeared loved ones.
But before arpilleras, Violeta had become internationally known for her music. When she began her artistic career, she started with painting.
Her paintings explore deep emotions and personal experiences. The planes of color and vague interiors really mind us of Richard Diebenkorn and Florine Stettheimer.