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FEATURED ARTIST - January 2008Fernando BoteroFernando Botero is a Colombian artist known for his paintings and sculptures of inflated human and animal shapes. He attended a school for matadors for several years, but his true interest was in art and in 1948, he started work as an illustrator. In 1950, he went to Europe, where he attended the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, copied Velázquez and Goya in the Prado and admired the frescoes in Florence. He went on a long visit to Mexico in 1956-57 and the experience of Muralism (the political work of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera) significantly influenced his future direction.
In his own work, Botero introduced inflated forms, puffing up to an exaggerated size human figures, natural features, and objects of all kinds, celebrating the life within them while mocking their role in the world. He combined the regional with the universal, constantly referring to his native Colombia and also creating elaborate parodies of works of art from the past - whether Dürer, Bonnard, Velázquez or David. Not without humor, the symbols of power and authority found everywhere are targeted in his attacks on a society still infantile in its behavior.
Botero's trademark style is the depiction of round, corpulent humans and animals. In these works he references Latin-American folk art in his use of flat, bright color and boldly outlined forms. He favors a smooth look in his paintings, eliminating the appearance of brushwork and texture. The inflated proportions of his figures also suggest an element of political satire, perhaps hinting at the subjects' inflated sense of their own importance. His paintings include bordello scenes and nudes, which possess comic qualities that challenge and satirize sexual mores, and portraits of families, which possess a gentle, affectionate quality.
Botero's Abu Ghraib series of paintings depicting scenes from the war in Iraq is painted in his signature style; however the bloated figures serve to intensify the viewer's engagement with the pictures and to emphasize human vulnerability. The effect of violence on both prisoner and guard suggests that we are all capable of losing our humanity in the face of war. The viewer is shaken out of a sense of conventional complacency and becomes part of the world of suffering. More than photographic representation, these images impart a personal and troubling viewpoint. These paintings are not for sale - Botero has said he has no interest in profiting from them - the entire collection will be donated to the University of California, Berkeley.
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