Violeta Parras Visual Art

This book explores Violeta Parras visual art, focusing on her embroideries (arpilleras), paintings, papier-mch collages and sculptures. Parra is one of Chiles great artists and musicians, yet her visual art is relatively unknown. Her fusion of complex imagery from Chilean folk music and culture with archetypes in Western art results in a hybrid body of work. Parras hybridism is the story of this book, in which Dillon explores Parras painted songs, the ekphrastic nature of her creations and the way ideas translate from her music and poetry into her visual art. The book identifies three intellectual currents in Parras art: its relationship to motifs from Chilean popular and oral culture; its relationship to the work of other modern artists; and its relationship to the themes of her protest music. It argues that Parras commentaries on inequality and injustice have as much resonance today as they did fifty years ago. Dillon also explores the convergence between Parras art and the work of other modern twentieth-century artists, considering its links to Surrealism, Pop Art and the Mexican Muralism Movement. Parra exhibited in open-air art fairs, museums and cultural centres as well as in prestigious venues such as Museu de Arte Moderna do Brasil (the Museum of Modern Art in Brazil) and the Muse des Arts Dcoratifs (Museum of Decorative Arts) in Paris. This book reflects on Parras socially-engaged work as it was expressed through her exhibitions in these centres as well as in through own cultural centre La carpa de la reina.