Alicia Viteri

Education and career

In 1968, Alicia Viteri was a college student at the Centro Colombia-Norte Americano in Bogota, Colombia, where she participated in her very first group exhibition as an artist. Two years later (1970), she was a proud graduate from the School of Fine Arts at the Universidad de los Andres, also in Bogota, Colombia.

In 1972, Viteri moved to Panama, where she had her very first solo exhibition. Within the same year, she began working as a professor at the University of Panama for a printmaking course.

Exhibition and works

1970-76 was a period of intense pictorial activity and participation in local and international exhibitions and biennials. One of Viteri’s first artistic activities was in 1970 with the Young Artists Biennia at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Bogota, Colombia. Three years later, she participated in the Second Graphic Arts Biennial in Cali, Colombia and then later, her work was featured in the Casa de la Cultura (House of Culture), Quito.

Alicia Viteri specialized in lithography at the Blau Workshop in Formentara, Spain in 1983. Within the same year, Viteri worked on creating her new work, Pictorial Spaces, a 7’x3’ mural, the first example of installation art in Panama. This mural is an exhibit of artwork presented at the Centro Colombo Americano in Bogota, Colombia. This exhibition has traveled to many locations around the world such as the Intar Gallery in New York, the Hispanic At Center in New York, the Galeria of Quito, the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Panama City, the Museo de la Tertulia in Cali, and the Banco de la Republica in Pasto. This mural includes six panels executed in oil on canvas, in black, white, silver, and gold showing a theme of carnivals and funerals. This mural of six black and white panels shows the viewer a deep and darkening feeling. The faces on the subjects within Viteri’s art show no life within the eyes as if the dead is walking around. The only life the viewer would feel is with the bright color palette consisting of red, pink, yellow, and orange Viteri has chosen to be projected onto the panels full of lifeless people holding and dancing with each other.

Pictorial Space focuses on three important aspects. The first is installation, which at the time of its execution in Panama was innovative. At the time, installation work was still a newly-explored medium. An early example is the work of Miguel Angels Rojas, who began to explore the medium at the end of the 1970s in the Atenas Salon and the project room at the Museum of Modern Art in Bogota, Colombia. Viteri’s work creates an environment by using recordings of urban noise with music. Some have suggested that the sound is of a buzzing of insects or it can be interpreted as murmuring of the crow. Another important aspect of the artwork is the handling of lights, which colors the figures so that they retain a natural scale. These different elements create an atmosphere and mood that go beyond the two-dimensional nature of the drawing and painting to involve the viewer emotionally in the funeral and carnival presented on the large human-like canvas (Rodríguez).

Secondly, the video included in the project is not so much a record of events as it is an essential part of the artwork. The video shows the active participation of the spectator and breaks down the frontiers between art and life. The video consists of the movement bright colors such as red, pink, orange, and yellow. This work also represents one of the most decisive moments in the artistic process of Viteri. She abandoned the world of the insects, which characterized an entire period of her production in the 1970 both in Bogota as well as in Quito and Panama. Using a disturbing iconography, she presented insects [(oscillating)] between a sense of tenderness and terror, which gradually became humanized and resulted in the prolonged metamorphosis culminating in the mural (Rodríguez).

Thirdly, Viteri's exhibition includes the primary drafts for the mural, which undoubtedly constitutes, along with the series of drawings and prints of insects and the series entitles The Mummy, some of the most interesting work of her entire career. Within, The Mummy are series of oil sketches on paper that show how the handling of brushes can lead to a sense of liberation in the medium of drawing. The emphasis falls on the act of drawing, with the line work revealing the moment of its own creation (Rodríguez). Viteri’s creations for The Mummy are dark and with emotionless. These figures represent death with no emotion among the dark circles for eyes and bold white heads. These drawings are done with an inclination to pay homage to a pure sense of craft, which has been nurtured by an inward-looking gaze towards the human condition itself, as well as an outward-looking gaze towards the history of art. These gazes reflect the shadows of Goya and the chiaroscuro of Rembrandt, whose devastating power, determination of expressionist art, and atmospheric settings, have guided Viteri’s steps towards the creation of the mural (Rodríguez).

One of her other great works is Digital Memory from 2000 which is directed towards the making of a book that would recount her life through images and brief legends. The landscape she has been working on since sometime ago became a parallel production that allows her to approach color and to leave behind the black- and- white world of her insects, carnivals, and funerals while deepening her mastery of the craft of painting (Rodríguez). They are bright, full-of-life photos of her family and friends, mixed with digital design. In the middle of her new project, Viteri became very ill and while overcoming all obstacles with great tenacity, and with the support of Benjamin Villegas, the book project moved forward and came to life. The project was finished and launched in March of 2009 in Panama City, and in mid-April in Bogota at the Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cultural Center (Rodríguez). Alicia Viteri created these wonderful pieces of artwork by putting her pictorial and graphic expertise to the limit by using the services provided by technology. She used computer software to replace brushes, burins, and the sharp point of a pencil. The book won second place both for Best Cover and for Best Art Book in Spanish. The format of the book features a violet silk cover and the image of Alicia as a child, which turns into a delicate object. A translucent-paper sheet precede it as if one was looking through a photo-album (Rodríguez).

Accomplishments

In 1979, Viteri founded the Printmaking Workshop at the Panamanian Institute of Art, where she was responsible for revitalizing an interest in printmaking as an artistic medium in Panama. She retired from this position in 1983. During her years of teaching at the Panamanian Institute of Art, Alicia planned and carried out the project “Eleven Prints,” a portfolio with works by the best Panamanian artist of that time (unable to find artists name) (Rodriguez). In 1981, she directed the graphic series Panarte Editions. 1984, Viteri was part of a graphic design club portfolio printed at Prografica in Cali, and the portfolio of the Religious Music Festival in Popayan, both in Colombia.

Publications

Alicia Viteri’s book Digital Memory where she uses the technique of computer art and recreated digital photography of her family and friends, was published in 2000. It was named the winner of the top prizes in Latino Book Awards (New York, USA).