Artificialis

Artificialis

contemporary art / history of art

Karla Acuna Vela

Born 1967 in Guatemala City, Guatemala, Karla grew up in a family with a rich artistic background. Her ancestors were architects, choreographers, dancers, poets or writers. In consequence, she got early in contact with a creative and humanist environment and started take photos in the early age of nine years. 1993 she moved to Madrid, Spain, where she worked as cultural attaché at the Guatemalan Embassy.

Karla’s experience in an artistic atmosphere, led her to express herself as artist. Besides photographer, she is as well poetry writer. Supplementary to her autodidactic experience, she frequented several workshops for photography, inter alia with the photojournalist Ángel López Soto. In addition, she studied the works of other artists. She is in particular influenced by Julia Margaret Cameron – early pioneer of photo-portraits in the 19th century, Vivian Maier with regard to Street Photography and the contemporary Mexican visual artist and photographer Yamina del Real. Furthermore, she always has a glance to other disciplines, especially to paintings by Frida Kahlo and Edward Hopper. Only exposing since 2014, Karla had several personal and group exhibitions in Guatemala and the United States.

The photo series “Silenced Scream”, which includes our artwork of the month December “Sentimientos Anónimos IV”, is inspired by the creations of the Guatemalan painter Roberto Ossaye (1927-1954). First of all the series is a dialog the artist does with herself about her feelings concerning the great enigma of life. Through the photos, Karla likes to invite the observer to reflect on his/her own emotions in exchange with the picture. It could be an encounter with feelings of responsibility, indignation, justice, vulnerability and truth. They could be activated by a personal the image transcending meditation.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/karlacuna/

Artwork of the month / December 2016