Artist: Velarde, Kukuli

In her versatile work in ceramic, painting, and drawing, Kukuli Velarde applies a feminist perspective by foregrounding the female and Brown body—her self-portrait—in the context of visual motifs evoking precolonial Latin American culture, Western colonial artifacts, and contemporary comic literature and advertising. Her work coalesces lived experience and fabricated projections of Latinx identity, to express a personal mythology and explore issues of beauty outside the canons. “Five centuries ago,” she explains “a handful of Europeans changed the course of Peruvian history through a violent confrontation. My work has often revolved around the consequences of such encounter and the strategies developed by the original inhabitants of the land to survive and maintain their cultural identity.”