Elemental Landscapes: Earth in Barranca 2017

Curator: Let’s take a moment to consider Beatriz González's “Elemental Landscapes: Earth in Barranca” from 2017, rendered in acrylic. What's your initial response? Editor: Stark. The acid green ground is almost violently cheerful against the somber laborers and the geometry of those dark rectangular holes. The naivete of the rendering is quite affecting, too. Curator: Absolutely. This piece really hits you viscerally. González is deeply engaged with Colombia's socio-political landscape, particularly the often-unacknowledged labor and struggle of its working class. Editor: The artist seems more interested in symbolic representation. Look how she simplifies form and uses line, there’s not much in the way of depth or shading, and the angularity suggests an emotional flattening, maybe a bleakness in the representation. Curator: Precisely. And, look at how the faceless figures blend into their work, becoming almost one with the earth, anonymous victims of these exploitative structures. González uses this flattening to underscore the erasure of individual identity within systemic oppression. She creates the same feeling, I think, in many of her works dealing with political figures. Editor: There’s something unsettling about the palette, and the bold simplicity of the composition, the way she arranges these rectangles creating tension… Curator: The unnatural green could reference environmental exploitation, perhaps the literal scars on the land mirroring the deep societal wounds. The contrast is powerful. She's not only presenting exploitation of the labor class, but she's subtly, and maybe not so subtly hinting at the scars left on the landscape. Editor: Ultimately, though, the tension resides in the push and pull of formal decisions—the unsettling flatness, and the calculated balance between form and color. Curator: Seeing through your lens illuminates how even formal qualities can subtly enhance the work’s activist undercurrents. Editor: And seeing it through your lens brings forward the narratives, layering onto a more deeply enriched perception of it.