Athena's luminous and captivating portrait paintings offer revealing insights into the true faces of South America, exploring how ingenious culture and global diversity has influenced present day people.
Through interviews and portraits of many nationalities, along her journey, Athena culminates her own captivating visual interpretation, uniting contemporary people with their native indigenous history. Expect contemporary faces in traditional realism contrasted with bursting modern colours of native print using thick impasto paint and weave. Enter a world where the past meets the present, and we see how South American history has been sewn.
During her ambitious travels to cover South America over a 3 month period, Athena realised that her preconceptions about the influences of global and indigenous cultures on the continent were just waiting to be reimagined.
In a journey of discovery, she found vibrant people and society far richer, more diverse and with more of an eclectic spectrum of influence than she imagined. She not only encountered presiding influence from the historical events of the past but also a culture steeped in indigenous faces and traditions that exists to this day.
Jennifer Andrea Rodríguez Henao
Nickname: Andrea
Father: From farmers in Northern Columbia with
Spanish Roots
Mother: Bogota
Born and raised in Bogota, Columbia
“I know from some uncles of my mother that they
had some indigenous background.
Here in Bogotá "Los muiscas" was our native tribe.
Some people say that I have the classic
characteristics of their skin, also my nose, my dark
hair and dark eyes makes me really similar to the
pictures in the museums ;)
But somehow I feel a little bit the history behind me
of the Spanish and the roots of the indigenous and
from that mix somewhere, tons of years later my
generation is there.
My father has blue eyes and dark skin my mom has
brown eyes and white skin.
I'm just a Mestiza (A mix)"
“Muiscas means "mucha gente"; a lot of people.
They were people of sharing and really calm.
In Bogotá we have the advantage of being surrounded
by mountains. For them those mountains were sacred.
To me the most relaxing place I can go is the
mountains...I also love to share with others, so I guess
their culture is subconscious in me."
---
I have painted Andrea's garment in yellow representing the scared element gold
held in Bogota and amongst the tribes. I also added modernised and abstracted
shapes of frogs onto her top as the shamans believed then when the frogs started
to croak, the rainy season had started - they were a sign of fertility and abundance.
