Niurka Guzman Otañez

Born 1981 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Niurka Guzman Otañez moved to Mexico City at the 2006. She received a Master in Paint from The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (National Autonomous University of Mexico) in 2009. In the same year she began an intense development of a highly personal expression in gravure. Her artistic work develops parallel between painting and printmaking.

Niurka has executed numerous public and private commissions. She has shown extensively in group and solo exhibitions in Sweden, France, Dominican Republic, Mexico, United States and Spain.

Artist Statement
My work consists of a constant reflection on the role of women in Latin American society. I am always questioning which stereotypes are current in defining femininity.
Throughout history, the representation of women has been distorted through their association with comportamientos típicos, or mannerisms which are understood to be part of everyday cultural behavior. Mass media consolidates certain models of female mannerisms.
I focus my attention on fairy tales and on their consequences on gendered social relations. I portray elements of quotidian life to convey the situation of the Mexican woman. My principal objective is to destabilize the symbolic order attributed to the mannerisms associated with women. I use images and symbols which challenge social conventions through humor and irony.
My work uses the traditional techniques of painting of tempera and encaustic for their visual and material richness. In the same token, I use engraving and design to incorporate them in a language, in which my attention is to emphasize the visual effect of the material in order to reinforce the concept and present pieces of a great visual quality.

Niurka Guzmán Otañez
Visual Artist