#myrna baez

[piononostalgia]

Myrna Báez

« Platanal »

Acrylic on canvas, 1974

[oncanvas]

Platanal (Banana Plantation), Myrna Báez, 1974

Acrylic on canvas 45 x 35 in. (114.3 x 88.9 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, USA

[bellsofsaintclements]

"Desnudo frente al espejo" (1980) by Puerto Rican artist Myrna Báez (*1931).

[jinnpr]

RIP

[literaturha]

Myrna Báez

[loubythelake]

La Isla de Puerto Rico - The island whose name means "Rich Port," a US Territory. This tiny island was home to the Taino First Peoples before being colonized by Spaniards who settled there, bringing enslaved Africans. It shares a complicated relationship of dependency and identity like many islands whose culture and land have been commandeered with greed by those with the most brutal military. Our blood is mixed, and so are our features. Our culture is fractured at times as we now reconcile our past with our place in the world. Women, especially women of the minority, are prescribed a role in society. They are expected to stay within certain boundaries without always knowing what that entails. Both artists note the isolation, vagueness, and exhaustion of navigating the landscape of changing requirements.

La Alfombra Roja (The Red Carept) was painted by celebrated colorist Myrna Baez. A printmaker, painter, and professor, she traveled internationally for her education before coming back home to guide the next generation of artists. Baez was in love with her art. She continually experimented with prints and painting, exploring an "intense approach to light...in which the human figure is transparently fused to the landscape."In giving herself the freedom to experiment, she was an active part of the conversation surrounding defining oneself by accomplishment, not a gender role. A Caballo de Mentiras (On the Horse of Lies) was drawn by María Antonia Ordoñez. She speaks about her art like it's an old friendship, "it makes me happy to make images emerge from the paper." Her art is detailed and complex, often featuring female protagonists in various stages of dress/nudity. She simultaneously celebrates the mythos of an elegant woman while protesting our oppression.

In La Alfombra Roja, two women are seated near one another; while one is given a seat at the table, the other is relegated to the corner. They are disengaged from each other and the viewer. The details of the women are blurred, the sharpest lines reserved for the boundaries of the room and its furniture. Do the figures feel ephemeral in their existence? I wonder about the separation of the two women. It is often the role of the eldest daughter in a Hispanic family to care for her aging parents, to the negation of her own goals and personality. She fades into the background as the central institution of Family takes precedence, even as it holds her back. Contrasting the faded figures of Baez, in A Caballo de Mentiras, Ordoñez has drawn a well-defined woman stuffed onto a child's rocking horse. She looks directly at the viewer; her eyes are glazed, mouth slightly agape. It's hard to look away; it's absurd that an adult would be so committed to her station atop a child's toy. Is she aware of her surroundings? She has the expression of someone exhausted from contorting herself onto this Horse of Lies. The drawing's setting is minimal, and the figure dominates the space.

There are essentially five colors in A Caballo de Mentiras - black, white, blue, red, and green. The figure is a neutral color, and around her is a collage of green leaves. The section of the work the rocking horse is on is red, corresponding with the outer edges of the leaves. It looks like fire. The woman is encased in the lie of green leaves, unaware of the reality of flames around her and the string that's pulling the horse disappearing out of view. La Alfombra Roja is a silky mousse of deep blues, yellows, and striking red. The light is highlighted in two places. In the center, a stained glass light hangs over the table. Its light brightens the table - a place of gathering- but not the entire woman sitting there. Her chair is pulled out just far enough to keep her distant. In the corner, to the left of the figure is a circle of light and color; the palette is of the Madrugada, the sunrise. She casts a dark shadow on it. Both of these works are striking in different ways. La Alfombra Roja is rich with color and texture, and A Caballo de Mentiras startles the viewer with direct eye contact from both the woman and the demonic horse she rode in on.

My mother tells me stories of her time at a Puerto Rican university, of riding the bus from one end of the island to the other, listening as the riders debated the benefits of Puerto Rican statehood. That was in the 1970s. She has recently retired to the mountains of Puerto Rico and tells me the debate on the bus is still going. Sometimes there isn't a solution, only shifting sand, rolling waves, and buses of humanity negotiating their place in the world while getting aqui por allá - from here to there.

Works Cited:

1 Margarita Fernandez Essay, Myrna Báez: Una mirada ante su espejo, Boletín Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, year 4, number 4, October-December 2001.

2 Vicens, M. “Literatura a color”. El Nuevo Día (San Juan, Puerto Rico), 24 de septiembre de 2000, pp. 76-77.

3 (artwork) LEVAL, S. T. Women Artists from Puerto Rico. Helicon Nine, [s. l.], v. 14/15, p. 50–59, 1986. Disponível

Buena Vista Social Club (The sound of the Island’s old ways)

[blitz-core]

Mirror Matter Inspired by "Positivo Negativo" by Myrna Baez #Art #drawing #digitalart #negativeeffect #MirrorMatter https://www.instagram.com/p/B-7j3QrpcRy/?igshid=19lzsmb70aec7

[landscapemode]

Myrna Baez (Puerto Rico, 1931) Entre dos mundos, 1992 Oil on Canvas 104 x 140 cm. (40.9 x 55.1 in.)

[bac-photo]

Campechada Parade

Myrna Baez character passes La Factoria

[piononostalgia]

Myrna Báez

[selfportraitsofcolor]

Myrna Báez, b. 1931 Autorretrato Puerto Rico (1963) Oil woodcut [Source]

The painter Myrna Baez is one of the few female artist that clearly had a major impact in our art. It is clear that the art scene in Puerto Rico was dominated by male artist through out the 50’s, 60’s and even the 70’s and very few female painter where even consider accomplished artist due to this effect, BUT not in the case of Myrna Baez she was a very diverse artist dominating different technique like drawing, woodcut engraving and acrylic/oil painting.

Myrna Baez in 1963 made a very special wood linoleum titled “Autorretrato” it was a simple yet powerful image of  young Myrna Baez at 32 years of age, observing the viewer with a steady gaze. The composition showed a sharp yet elegant look in her eyes which expressed a centralized woman ready to surpass all obstacles in her way specially for the 60’s.

The work was such and important piece in her career that in 2014 the “Instituto de Cultura de Puerto Rico” used the image for the Campechada in her honor and even Lorenzo Homar one of the top engraver of that time used her woodcut for a Promotional Event.

These Self-Portrait to me is a very powerful statement that Myrna Baez sent to those male artist in that particular time in history. It said “I’m here to stay, weather you like it or not im as good of an artist as the rest of you”.  There is no doubt that the engraving titled self-portrait is one of the best works by Myrna Baez. To this date I have not been able to find a single Self-Portrait that has this simplicity but at the same time emit so much passion in a single glance. Many great master have practiced the “Autorretrato” task but very few have been able to achieved the fame that this work has received on the last 40 years.

More on the artist here!

[literaturha]

Myrna Báez, Spectators

[literaturha]

Myrna Báez, Ramón