Bolivian artist Mamani Mamani

Color, Earth, Andes:  The Work of Bolivian Artist Roberto Mamani Mamani

By Sara ShahriariRoberto Mamani Mamani’s bold, eye-catching paintings of brilliantly colored mountains, the Earth Mother Pachamama and indigenous Bolivians have made him one of Bolivia’s best-known artists. Mamani Mamani lives in La Paz, a city in Bolivia’s high-altitude western plains and the center of the country’s government. He calls himself Quechua Indian by birth and Aymara Indian by blood, because he grew up in an Aymara family in the Quechua-dominated valleys of Bolivia.

The valleys and gently rolling mountainous landscape of his childhood feature in Mamani Mamani’s art, as does the indigenous religion and worldview his grandmother taught him. The Earth Mother Pachamama, shown as a rounded and strong indigenous woman, is a common presence in his work. By combining images from Spanish colonial art into this Andean landscape, Mamani Mamani produces a world that is distinctly Bolivian.Comment:  For more on Bolivian arts, see Afro-Bolivian Music and Bolivian Revolution on Film.

Below:  "Mother Illimani with Intis, Awichas and Children, by Roberto Mamani Mamani. Oil and pastels."