The lake, 2016

Beatriz Oggero  

Beatriz Oggero is a Uruguayan visual artist, born in Minas, Uruguay in 1944, and residing in Bolivia since 1996.  She was formally trained in Universal History and later in Art History at the University of The Republic, in Montevideo. 

In 1980 she entered the atelier of Ernesto Aroztegui, to learn traditional and experimental textile techniques. Since 1982 she has participated in more than 50 collective shows and the Biennales organized by the World Textile Art (WTA) organization in Argentina 2009, México 2011, Montevideo 2017 and Madrid 2019.

From 1991 to 1996 she established the Department of Textiles at the Center for Industrial Design in Montevideo, through the programs in Design, Creativity and History of Textiles. From 1996 on, she has been a panelist and lecturer in Contemporary Art, and History of Textiles with an emphasis on Andean Textiles; in Bolivia and Uruguay. 

In 2017 she received the “Olga de Amaral Award" of the Seventh International Biennial of the WTA for “her outstanding contributions to the areas of research, teaching, artistic creativity, publishing, promotion and outreach, to the benefit of contemporary textile art, both in Uruguay and internationally."

Upon her move to Cochabamba, in 1996, which took her away from her smooth tall gobelin loom, left back in Montevideo, Oggero started an intense painting activity. Her mediums of choice were acrylic and oil paint on canvas and board, often combined with the use of corrugated and glued papers on different surfaces. 

Her sources of inspiration were naturally, the structures, owing to her familiarity with textile techniques and following the steps of the Uruguayan master, Joaquín Torres Garcia. But foremost, what brought her to the gesture was the idea of water. In 1998, during her first visit to Lake Titicaca and Tiwanaku, she was dazzled by the colors and views of the lake, and the stone structures of the ancient ruins at the Kalasasaya Fortress, which instantly became her sources of inspiration for a new series of paintings. 

This series was widely acclaimed and exhibited throughout Bolivia by invitation of the Simon I. Patiño foundation in 2002, 2014 and 2016, often alongside her experimental textiles which were created while in Bolivia.