The artist Perla Arroyo
1 de December de 2022

Perla Arroyo is the artist and creator of the Calavera Mexicana project. The daughter of an architect and descendant of a family of cabinetmakers, she had a childhood surrounded by architectural design projects, structures and engineering, 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. He 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 vocation she has developed projects in the areas of art, technologies applied to graphic and industrial design; and at the same time she has worked as an entrepreneur in cultural topics. She has also been a teacher and researcher in cultural topics and management.

He 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. Their desire 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, constitutes 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 meaningful universe of Calavera mexicana.1

 

“In my work lives the work of the Vanitas of the baroque, the ancestral art of the great cultures but above all the immanent beauty and greatness of the Mesoamerican cultures. For me, Mexican skull is a symbol of life and at the same time it is a cultural power where our identity and unique beauty lives since time immemorial.”

He has participated in multiple exhibitions, among them those of the Academia de San Carlos or the Museo de Arte de la Ciudad Querétaro, to name a few; he recently participated in the Salon du Connaisseur in Madrid. She is also a member of the Cultural Council of the Coyoacán Mayor’s Office in Mexico City. He exhibits his pieces at the Joyería Gómez Molina in Marseille and at the Galería Jorge Alcolea 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, from the sugar skull in Day of the Dead and the Catrina of Manila, 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.

1. Luis Ignacio Sáinz