Mayan Market

The artist Angelina Quic Ixtamer, a Mayan, was born in 1972 in the municipality of San Juan La Laguna, which sits right on the beautiful Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. Fun fact: in the Mayan language, Atitlán means “place where the rainbow gets its colors”.

I bought this canvas at Angelina’s gallery in 2014. As an artist, she’s adept at gathering and mixing all colors of the rainbow, as if she’s looking down on the world from this rainbow. Bird’s eye view – that’s her thing.

This painting is the first in my collection that could be considered naïve art, and is likely the most unusual as well. We see a Mayan market from above: people and animals, maize and beans, as well as the faces of two children who seem to have just caught a glance of the author.

When you look at something ordinary from above, and nobody notices you, a view opens up that is anything but ordinary. Isn’t that right?

The painting is drawn from a bird’s eye view, which turns a noisy Mayan bazaar, with its merchants and buyers, birds and pigs, grains and beans, into a shining ornament. And in this ornament, it’s the figures of those people – adorned colorfully, carrying round, woven gold baskets that look like shining suns from above, and around which the action is happening – which are thus woven into a coherent whole that is permeated by a general rhythm and energy… With the accuracy of the drawing, the structuring of color blots – featuring elements of both realism and relativism – the piece is reminiscent of artwork from Jose Orosco and Diego Rivera, which is based in traditional Mexican art, images and aesthetics from Native American peoples. Angelina Quic Ixtamer fits into this tradition, enriching it with the author’s original point of view.

Halyna Sklyarenko, candidate in Art History

This painting, depicting a Mayan market, is quite a colorful and unusually decorative work thanks to its perspective. After all, this view from above, and concurrent lack of linear perspective, attracts the eye. The scene, the actions taking place on the canvas, unfold through the rhythmic sequencing of colors. It’s as if these color blots are dancing in the proverbial whirlwind of daily routine. The female silhouettes, with round forms on their heads and hands, appear unusual to the human eye because of the perspective, and create the impression of an ornamental surface. This is all underscored by a succulent color scheme that features various warm colors rotating throughout the painting, and are themselves diluted by blue, green and black coloring.

Olena Polovna-Vasilieva, artist, M.F.A., Associate Professor at Oles Honchar Dnipro National University, member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine

Discuss this picture on Facebook