El otro (The Other)

Like much 1980’s Argentine art, the paintings of Ana Eckell (b. 1947) convey the uneasiness and oppressive climate of the military dictatorship. For two decades, Eckell produced images where animals, objects, and people intermingle chaotically and violently in a style reminiscent of comic strips or quick sketches in a notebook. Eckell wants to move the viewer, to generate an emotional response around a universal theme: human pain. "I am aware that I engage my emotions—turbulent, peaceful or confused emotions—that I am totally involved in the act of painting. But what I want is to mobilize others. What I am looking for is not something intellectual, but to produce a kind of current of exchange, a reciprocal game.”
Ana Eckell's work has been applauded both in her country and around the world. She has participated in more than ten International Biennials and has received awards and distinctions in Argentina such as First Prize for Best Installation from the International Art Critics (1994) and First Place in the Costantini Award from the National Museum of Fine Arts (1997). In addition, her paintings are part of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), Museo de Arte Moderno de Rio de Janeiro, and The Bronx Museum of The Arts.