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A remarkable Salvadoran architect and painter, Cañas settled in Washington, D.C. in 1969. His work encompasses three periods, moving from abstraction into explorations of ancient Mayan iconography and, finally, to the expressive and surreal neo-humanism seen in the present pastel. Here, Cañas presents a power struggle between the real and the spiritual worlds: a witch, wearing a pointy black hat and draped in a billowing bright-pink and umber gown, compels a young woman to follow her into a magical, and plausibly dangerous, realm. Naked and vulnerable, the woman shields her face, her carefully modeled body twisting away from the witch’s entreaty. Their strange, dream-like encounter is characteristic of Cañas’s work after the mid-1970s, which explore existential and erotic themes.

Text credit: Produced in collaboration with the University of Maryland Department of Art History & Archaeology and by Marta Strach