Ana María Velasco will be in residence at The Square West Palm Beach from January 14 - March 26, 2022.
Ana María Velasco (she/her) creates maps that outline her travels through earthy and spiritual worlds. Her painting practice is a relational one. La Sierra Madre de Santa Marta, the largest coastal mountain range on the planet and one of the most irreplaceable sites for conservation in the world, has been the motif and metaphor for Velasco’s artistic and personal investigation for the last decade. Through recurring engagements with this landscape, she has established an intimate relationship with the site and those who inhabit it, discovering new layers of our mutual dependence after each expedition. Born in Colombia, she often approaches the country and its biodiversity, politics, and people as a foundation for her visual vocabulary.
The dreamlike paintings and drawings stem from her need to record the seen and unseen world. She gathers information through observation and experience then shares evidence from her encounters. Growing up, she moved between Nicaragua (her mother’s homeland) while it was undergoing the throes of dictatorship and revolution and Colombia while it was ravaged by narco-terrorism. These inspiring and turbulent environments heightened Ana Maria’s sense of awareness and social conscience and solidified her motivation to use art as a way to spark reflection, conversation, and change.
Velasco holds an MFA from the School of The Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University and studied in La Escuela de Bellas Artes in Cali, Colombia. Selected exhibitions include Ríos Intermitentes, a group exhibition curated by Magdalena Campos-Pons as part of the Havana Bienale (2019) and Awaken: Conjuring our tomorrow Salem State University Winfisky Gallery, Salem, MA (2020). She was invited by The Korean Fine Arts Association and Kate Oh Gallery to exhibit in Seoul, Korea in 2019. Solo shows include Interdependencia at The Colombian Consulate in New York and Ficciones Retinianas at the Museum of Modern Art in Cali. Her work is held in the collections of Harvard University in Cambridge; The Museum of Modern Art La Tertulia in Colombia and Bank of America. She lives and works between Brooklyn, New York and Colombia, South America.
La Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. 2017. Acrylic on canvas. 11' x 6' feet
Ana María Velasco, When I am there you are here, 2020, Acrylic on canvas, 70" x 50" inches
Ana María Velasco, The world has a heart, 2021, Acrylic on canvas, 64" x 38" inches
Ana María Velasco, Aluna, 2017, Acrylic on canvas, 7' x 5' feet
Ana María Velasco, The Geography of plants, 2018, Acrylic on canvas, 24" x 24"
Work on paper from the series "Pagamentos" 2016-2022 (ongoing):
Ana María Velasco, Making water form crystals, 2017, Gouache & watercolor on paper, 10" x 7" inches
Ana María Velasco, A prayer for all fragile things, 2021. Gouache & watercolor on paper. 10" x 7" inches
Ana María Velasco, Our human being, 2021, Gouache & watercolor on paper, 10" x 7" inches