“Being a black person is my life mission,” Mamani Mamani admits

And color extremist y bearer of symbols and codes From the Aymara culture, is how the Bolivian painter and sculptor Roberto Aguilar Quisbert (1962), artistic name Roberto Mamani Mamani, refers to his plastic work.

A sample of his pieces, equivalent to an explosion of vivid color, is displayed at the National Museum of World Cultures.

Her grandmother, a weaver of aguayos, blankets and reader of coca leaves, said that Strong colors are used to ward off evil spirits and not to remain in the dark..

The exhibition Colored seed: Pachamama. Joy of the eagle and the condor, of fifty works, mostly paintings, but also sculptures, aims to show the worldview handled by the Aymara artist.

Mamani Mamani exhibited at the José Luis Cuevas Museum 16 years ago. Now he brings a set of pieces dedicated to Pachamama, that is, Mother Earth.

The exhibition is made up of series dedicated to Pachamana, musicians, the Amazon, the Tree of Life and the morenada (dance of the Aymaras, in which strong colors are displayed). Thus, the works bring to the surface the message of the native peoples, bearers of great cultures.

It includes a series of sculptures on toads – sculpted in wood and painted – the voice of Pachamama, that call for rain; it is the sacred animal of fertility.

In many of the pieces, symbols of water, lightning, the Andean cross and the coca leaf can be seen, the artist tells The Day.

Each set has something to pass on; that is, the knowledge, know-how and heritage of our elders.

Mamani Mamani is a descendant of Aymaras originally from Tiawanaku; however, she spent her childhood in the Cochabamba Valley.

Self-taught, for this color abuser before developing a style of his own, based on My identity and culture, my roots and originsthe painting I saw was Ochre grey, like a lamentHe decided to change this. As a child he would draw with charcoal from the wood his mother used to cook with, on newspaper or cardboard.

Thanks to conversations with his grandmother, the budding artist decided to be a color wearer as a mission in life. Towards this end he invented his colors with anilines, ochres, inks, because there was no money to buy.

He used natural pigments, such as cochineal; he even “explored cattle bile, which was cheap in the markets. He said: That’s the green I can use. Later, thanks to the sale of his works, he was able to acquire German and Japanese dyes, among others, which resulted new toys for me.

In the structure of his compositions, Mamani Mamani, who paints several pictures at a time, follows the guidelines of the Tiwanaku culture, which consists of simplifying the line and colour. They were great stone carvers, much older than the Incas. For us, the major arts are ceramics and textiles, while for Western culture they are painting and sculpture..

Language difficult to understand in the West

For the painter, the aesthetics of his ancestors are difficult to understand in Western terms: “Here we are the masters. We have the voice of truth. Our ancestors had simplified the line, created a range of colours and pure cubism. In a pre-Columbian fabric I see a cubism of excellence, let’s say.

“Western culture has taken over all these aesthetics and parameters. They say: ‘we are’, but it is false. Our primary cultures, such as the Mayan and the Mexica, have contributed to and surpassed Western art.”

During his stay in Mexico, Mamani Mamani plans to paint several murals.

One, in the Los Pinos Cultural Complex, whose theme would be a meeting of cultures: that of the eagle (Mexico) and that of the condor (Bolivia), both embraced by a Pachamama, or mother.

It is sponsored by the Comex paint company. There is the possibility of executing murals in several states.

Three decades ago, the artist began creating murals as a way of leaving his legacy.

In 2023, he held one in Philadelphia, in the United States. Apart from having others in Bogotá, Santiago de Chile; even, in the presidential house of his native country.

In 2016, he carried out work on the walls of the Wiphala social housing complex, located in El Alto, Bolivia, a project that took him six months and for which he had 60 assistants.

The exhibition Colorful seed: Pachamama. Joy of the eagle and the condor It will be on display until November 4 at the National Museum of World Cultures (Moneda 13, Historic Center).