La bruja azul (The Blue Witch)

In La bruja azul, Oswaldo Vigas conveys his fascination with mythology as well as with the female body, pushing the boundaries of figuration by expanding ways in which a subject can be viewed. In the 1940s and the 1950s, and informed by his study of pre-Columbian ceramics, Vigas evolved his painting style to focus on synthetic figures, rendered in grim color palettes and through strong lines and brushstrokes. The Bruja series harks back to this period, portraying local women drawn from pre-Columbian mythology and rendered with a degree of abstraction. Here in La bruja azul, he accesses magico-religious themes through the utilization of bold lines and dramatic colors—blue, red, black, white—to express the female form.

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