Papilio Thoas Cinyrus (Peru)

María Fernanda Cardoso’s experiences in Colombia while growing up had a lasting impact on her art: the mountain hikes she took with her father, the pre-Columbian artworks with animal motifs she saw in local museums, and the ritual art she found in colonial churches. From these life events she condensed a rich reservoir of natural forms and funerary meanings in order to address the violence pervading her country during the 1980s and 1990s. Cardoso’s readymades utilize the preserved remains of animals, including those that are still viewed as sacred beings in some Indigenous cultures, to confront the viewer’s ideas about death. In this case, she chose a type of butterfly common in the Americas, arranging their colorful wings in circular patterns that allude to both a minimalist formalism and the underlying geometric principles visible in the natural world.