Oswaldo DeLeón Kantule - "Achu" |
Artist's Statement
I find inspiration for my art in the deepest of Kuna spirituality, in our Kuna world view and in our millenary existence. Our myths, art, religion, rituals and ceremonies, due to their symbolic and metaphorical language, are misunderstood by many people; however, they can help to explain the reality of today«s society, which is immersed in a moral crisis, plagued by intolerance, violence, racism, the destruction of the environment and the globalization of fear. I try to express and to understand these times in which I live and to understand my own human contradictions through my paintings.
In order to communicate these worries, I use the ancestral symbolism of my people, present in our daily lives, and sometimes I make use of symbols of other cultures, both indigenous and non-indigenous. However, I do not attempt to describe these ancestral sources, rather I use them as an intimate language of communication between myself and my work.
The use of words such as "stolen spirit", "evil spirit", and "devils" in the titles of my paintings and the use of animal figures are not always a literal representation of those elements but rather they are representations to indicate alienation or loss of identity, acculturation, intolerance or flexibility, and others.
"Achu"
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