Biography
In denouncement of violence, painter and sculptor Oswaldo Guayasamín dedicated his practice to exploring expressions of pain and misery in the collective human history. His work, which he considered an homage to the struggle of mankind, was both expressionist and humanist in style; he also borrowed significantly from the folk painting traditions of indigenous peoples of Latin America. As a result, Guayasamín is sometimes considered an “indigenous expressionist”. He produced sculptures, murals, and paintings, and at the time of his death was working on his massive monument Chapel of Man. The most common subject in his works is the human figure, distorted by pain into an emaciated and skeletal form.
