Judith Gutierrez

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Judith Gutiérrez

Gutierrez's, Cantando con Barbarito Diez, oil on linen, 1998.

Judith Gutiérrez (Babahoyo, Ecuador,1927 - Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, 2003) was a master Latin American painter who worked in Ecuador and Mexico.

Gutierrez studied in the School of Fine Arts in Guayaquil, Ecuador, with the teacher Caesar Andrade Faini. A great part of her life was spent living and painting in Mexico. Gutiérrez and her husband left Ecuador, feeling like political exiles, due to the military government of the time. Twelve years after leaving Ecuador, Gutiérrez was invited by the Ecuadorian government to exhibit some of her paintings in the National Museum of the Central Bank of Ecuador. To her delight and honor this became her first major exhibit in her home country.

Raised Catholic, Gutiérrez always felt very comfortable with her spirituality. At a young age her father, a sailor and agriculturalist, sent her to a convent in the Andean city of Riobamba, 30km from the base of Chimborazo. As Gutierrez grew older she became more interested in ones personal relationship with their higher power and felt "the alter is within you". Gutierréz was known to meditate before creating her art. She felt meditation helped her to get to a different mental/spiritual state and hoped this would be reflected in her work.

Gutierrez developed within the Figuration, using symbols, mystical scenes and conjugated elements in a style that is reminiscent of Naif, as well as some Byzantine characteristics ("Bizantino Tropical" as an art critic once suggested): nature, men, women, the cosmos, are all the general components of her works. Gutiérrez attributes her natural subject matter in her work to her home town of Babahoyo which is the Province of the Rivers. Gutiérrez worked in many different techniques including: painting, sculpture, graphics, decoratives and applied installation.

Some of Gutierrez's most important works are: Dancer's Memory of the Artist, Book for The Blind and The Christ of Santa Elena.

Gutierrez held numerous individual exhibitions and is represented in many galleries and museums in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Pasadena, Washington, Great Britain, Osaka, Guayaquil, Quito, Mexico City, Munich, Havana, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Panamá, and São Paulo.