Translations:Emma Reyes/11/en

Emma Reyes' work is characterized by its eclecticism, by rescuing from each of the artistic trends with which she experimented various elements, techniques and themes that she would later manage to articulate with considerable originality and coherence in her paintings. The influence of naïve art in her works is observed through the freedom in interpretation and self-taughtness that is perceived in the use of bright colors and in the execution of rural landscapes and still lifes. From indigenism and muralism, both artistic currents linked to Mexican artistic history, she was inspired to create portraits of peasants, indigenous people, men and women from the most marginalized social sectors in Latin America. Likewise, from expressionism she would employ the use of thin and thick lines both to fill the shapes and objects, and to give them contour and volume (Medina, 1996). The use of lines of all thicknesses, lengths and shapes is part, on the other hand, of a heritage of pre-Columbian Peruvian art, similar to the details in the weavings made by Andean indigenous communities (Tal, 1996).