Searching for light, 2022

Rina Mamani  

Rina Mamani was born in the city of El Alto, Bolivia. She attended the Municipal School of the Arts, where she received training under the renowned Bolivian watercolor master, Ricardo Perez Alcalá. She became not only Alcala´s disciple, but also his friend and personal aide in his home studio, where she learned as much as she could from her master. Alcalá described her technique and pictorial approach as distinctive from his as her themes often relate to very personal experiences. “She cares a lot about aromas, the culinary heritage, atmospheres proper to her upbringing. She does not depart from drawing, which is the vertebral column of her work. She escapes from easy solutions in her painting," Alcalá stated about Mamani´s work.

Rina likes to use oil, acrylic, or pastel, but strongly favors watercolor as her media of choice. Rina´s still lifes transcend the mere depiction of the objects but intend to assign objects a feeling: tranquility, pleasure, happiness, sadness, passion, encouragement, and sometimes even pain. Her landscapes succeed at recreating Andean atmospheres with a mystic aura. Her human figure and nude paintings often take a surrealistic and fantastic twist. She stresses that the path her paintings take is tightly linked to her emotional status, her dreams, at the time she executes the works.

She has received more than 20 awards and recognitions at a national level, among them the first and second places at the National Watercolor Contest in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Her works are present in private collections in Bolivia and abroad.

Woman, mother, and an artist that through her paintings intends to rescue her cultural heritage and the beauty of nature, that is how she defines herself, always acknowledging the unconditional support she received from her parents and siblings. Their support, she explains, helped her pursue a career in the plastic arts even though she came from a background where the appreciation for such a life trajectory was not traditionally encouraged or promoted, particularly in a woman.