Prehispanico 

Ramon Oviedo created this abstract work titled "Prehispanico" using mixed media. Oviedo was Dominican, and the title suggests an interest in Pre-Columbian history, particularly its visual codes. The image is a mask-like figure rendered in a style that suggests a primitive aesthetic. But instead of a faithful reproduction of indigenous art, it is an exercise in abstraction, and the jagged lines and asymmetrical shapes suggest that Oviedo’s interest in indigeneity may have been less than reverent. Oviedo came of age during the Trujillo dictatorship, and while he was appointed a cultural attaché by the regime, his later work became more overtly critical of it. So we might view this work as ambivalent. On the one hand, it is a celebration of Dominican heritage, but on the other, it is a modernist assault on it. Examining the archives of Dominican art institutions would no doubt yield a more nuanced picture of Oviedo's relationship to the politics of his time.