Edgar Arandia

“The first thing: passion, incommensurable passion. Because if one starts to calculate up to which point one will be a painter, and up to which point one will be a human being, then one is lost; because an artist ought to be a complete being, global, a total passion: one does not stop being an artist on the weekends to become something else."

Edgar Arandia

Edgar Arandia (La Paz, Bolivia, 1950), is a poet, painter, illustrator, and printmaker. He studied fine arts at the Hernando Siles School of the Arts, and at the Printmaking Studio of the Bolivian-Brasilian Center, both located in La Paz. He also holds a bachelor's degree in anthropology and a diploma in higher education. He has been a faculty member at the Plastic Arts Department of the Major University of Saint Andrey in La Paz since 1983. In the 70s, he belonged to an influential art collective called “The meritorious of utopia". He also served as Vice Minister of Culture from 2006 to 2007, and as director of the National Art Museum, from 2008 to 2015.

His works have received multiple awards in Bolivia and abroad, among them, the First Place at the Murillo Salon, a very prestigious award in Bolivia, in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1984, and 1989; the Special Price at the Latin-American Biennial of Drawing held in Maldonado, Uruguay, in 1977; and a Special Mention at the Santo Domingo Drawing Biennial held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in 1998. He remains an influential figure in the cultural life of Bolivia, through his work as a plastic artist, writer, and teacher.