Arroyo is the artist and creator of the Calavera Mexicana® project. Daughter of an architect and descendant of a family of cabinetmakers, her childhood was surrounded by architectural design projects, structures, engineering and art, which led her to develop technical skills that she complemented with her sensitivity and passion for aesthetics, culture and art.
His artistic practice dates back to his studies at Cedart Diego Rivera (Centro de estudios artísticos Diego Rivera del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes), where he learned basic concepts and, above all, the constant practice of different artistic expressions. She later studied a Bachelor’s Degree in Design at the School of Design of the National Institute of Fine Arts, as well as a Master’s Degree at the San Carlos Academy of the UNAM, which gave him the tools and skills of management, critical thinking and research applied to personal developments in the artistic field.
Throughout her artistic practice she has developed projects in the areas of art, technologies applied to graphic and industrial design, and has also worked as an entrepreneur in cultural matters. She has also been a teacher, researcher and manager of cultural issues.
She is currently developing the Calavera Mexicana® project with the objective of making this symbol of Mexican culture visible, contributing his own elements and vision.
“Perla Arroyo affirms her Mexicanness in the recognition of contributions from other latitudes. Her will to know is complemented and enriched by the views of those others who are interlocutors and not adversaries. The sustained character, the integral nature of Nahuatl thought, constitute the backbone of her visual reflections, which make her a worthy heir of the ancient tlamatinime, those wise men from afar who “knew things”, and tlacuiloque, those who wrote while painting, or in this case sculpting and modeling in 3D. His is a contemporary look, a kind of syncretism that emphasizes, I insist, dynamic continuity, because change is an immanent value to this philosophy, where accidents and chance are valued and incorporated into the flow of the represented reality, as an image, as a reflection. Inspired by the principles of universal art and humanist concepts, she recreates her work enriched by the most exquisite ancestral and artisanal techniques that give each work a presence of eternal life. This is the universe full of meaning of Calavera Mexicana.”
Luis Ignacio Sáinz
“..In my work lives the legacy of the Baroque Vanitas, the ancestral art of great cultures, but above all the immanent beauty and grandeur of the Mesoamerican civilizations. For me, Calavera Mexicana is a symbol of life and, at the same time, a cultural force where, since time immemorial, our unique identity and beauty reside.”
Perla Arroyo
Arroyo has participated in multiple exhibitions, notably at the Academia de San Carlos and the Museo de Arte de la Ciudad de Querétaro, among others. She recently took part in the Salon du Connaisseur in Madrid. Arroyo is also a member of the Cultural Council of the Coyoacán Mayor’s Office in Mexico City. Her work has been exhibited at Gómez Molina Jewelers in Marbella and at the Jorge Alcolea Gallery in Madrid.
The Skull in the history of Mexican art has had a preponderant role that goes beyond popular culture and the myth of festive death, the sugar skull on Day of the Dead and the Catrina of Manilla, Posada, Diego and Frida. Its importance lies in its spiritual and religious character, represented in pre-Hispanic times – aesthetically and majestically embodied in works of worship to life -, which have made it transcend in time as a cultural power of beauty and aesthetics that now seeks its manifestation in this sculptural series created by the artist Perla Arroyo.
