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Controlled
Energy: The Figure in the Art of Isabel De Obaldía |
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Contemporary art in Panama reflects the
international character of the country. A
"crossroads" in the truest sense of the word,
Panama, in its cultural development, has absorbed
influences from other Latin American nations, Europe and
the United States, reinventing them according to the
necessities and realities of its own requirements.
Throughout the 1980s many of the painters in Panama City
(the capital and principal site of artistic activity)
have opted for a highly expressive figurative mode,
paralleling the reassessment of narrative art among
painters in many American and European art centers. The
Neo-Expressionist styles that developed in Berlin,
London, New York and Mexico City found their counterpart
in the art of a number of the younger painters in Panama.
The anguish of the political vagaries of the 1980s, a
period of uncertainty and apprehension in this Central
American country, was embodied in the poignant images
created by a number of painters. Employing vigorous
gestures, vibrant colors and forms inspired not only by
their foreign counterparts but also by indigenous
artistic expression, the Panamanians created ironic
simulacra of some of their most painful moments. Hidden, 1997 Among these artists there are few more outstanding than Isabel De Obaldía. Like many of her contemporaries, De Obaldía developed her work from a thorough understanding of the most up-to-date artistic modes which she had observed first hand. A product of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the Rhode Island School of Design and the New York Art Students League, she had experimented in a variety of techniques, including graphic design and film as well as painting. In the two-dimensional mode, De Obaldía has consistently represented the most compelling aspects of contemporary Panamanian visual expression. She creates large canvases and mixed media works on paper. These invariably depict single figures—human or animal—or small groupings highlighted by strongly contrasting colors, slashing lines and vigorous contours. De Obaldía has preferred to isolate her iconic images. They are not part of any specific narrative context, yet we implicitly understand them to be participants in situations that reflect an often tormented reality. We may read her figures, in their contorted positions, as images that express a non-specific yet intuitive suffering. This suffering might be understood as a reference both to the general malaise of our end-of-the-millennium existence and—as in the case of De Obaldía’s work done at the end of the 1980s where we are struck by her often terrifying monsters— the politically and socially unsettled times experienced at that moment by the painter’s nation. Nocturne, 1997 In the present context, however, we are concerned with an extraordinary turn that De Obaldía’s work took in 1987. This was the year in which she began to direct her attention to three-dimensional art. The change of focus from painting and drawing to sculpture was in itself an unusual and a fairly bold step for a Panamanian artist to take. The sculpture tradition in Panama is relatively under-developed (although there is a handful of artists who are working in wood and bronze); and even more unconventional is the medium that she chose. A course at the well-known Pilchuk Glass School in Stanwood, Washington was a determining event for De Obaldía who, since that time, has turned out a number of extraordinary pieces in cast glass. Yearning, 1997 Studying her glass works closely, we realize that she has accomplished a virtually seamless transition from her dramatic paintings and drawings to the luminescent sculptures. The same sense of monumentality is suggested in these pieces as is found in the works on canvas or paper. Albeit small in stature, the sculptures evoke a solemnity and, indeed, a grandiosity that is unusual among glass artists. De Obaldía does not search for pleasing (or even decorative) effects, as is the case with the majority of artists in this medium. She wishes, instead, to evoke the power and force of the human figure, or of the animals that she sometimes sculpts. Her means involve the creation of figures which are accomplished with the simplest outlines; her quasi-abstract geometric images evoke the authority suggested by the examples of early Greek or pre-Columbian sculpture that she so much admires. Color is a device that underlines the expressive potential of De Obaldía’s works, never obscuring the telluric vitality of her pieces. While in the future she may decide to experiment in large scale art, she is, at present, in the midst of a great experiment ("still learning" as she stated in the interview recorded herein), grappling with the delicate and often tricky techniques that are involved in the creation of glass. Purple Beast, 1997 De Obaldía’s work consists not only of the casting of the pieces but also includes the sensitive finishes that she applies to each of them. Polish, texture, engraved designs all lend a great degree of variety to her repertory of images. Many forms of life are evoked in these glass pieces. The earth as well as the sea are summoned up for us by the artist. As has been the case with all important sculptors, the essential qualities of life force are shown to the viewer in these simulacra of creation. De Obaldía presents us with her own unique universe of form, each component of which comes alive, in some degree, when observed together. New York, 1997 |
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