Calentamiento de la Tierra (Global Warming)
Karla Higueros
2010
Acrylic on canvas
40” x 60” (101,6 cm x 152,4 cm)
The painting “Global Warming” by Karla Higueros is part of her series “Mil Ventanas al Cambio” (A Thousand Windows to Change), inspired by the artist’s idea, that we have to open our windows to allow to change our attitudes facing the climate and social changes of our time.
In “Global Warming” Karla repeats the notion of the window in abstracting it into thousands of small red rectangles. Moreover, the bright red, as warm colour illustrates the temperature increase. These are the two constituting elements, which refer formally to the subject. Nevertheless, there are other essentials, to give the impression of a self-shining warm canvas.
The effect of a light source in the picture is the most intense in the middle of the lower section. Here the background is in radiant yellow that shines through the few red windows. This gleam is reflected in the upper middle part, due to a background in green shades. The complementary contrast of red and green creates still warmness. For the lower left plane, it is similar, even though there much less to be seen from the greenish plane. The great number of red rectangles together with some white ones in the foreground make this area luminous. Whereas at the margins intervene blue colour fields, which are cooling the temperature down.
Therefore, the left upper angle seems to be less gleaming, due to the blue in the rewarded layer. The lesser number of red and white windows reinforces this effect. Although the right upper angle has once again more red frames, it gives the impression of an only annealing surface, because the dark blue and partially black ground does not allow light to pass. In the lower right section, these impenetrable colours are even more dominant. By contrast, this makes the yellow section besides flashing.
To look once again at the painting as a whole, it is evident, that the encounter of bright and dark colours and the opposition of warm and cold tints establish the self-shining effect. In addition, the paint application seems to be made in indifferent layers. That gives the impression of a diaphanous foreground and a more or less opaque background.
“Global Warming” is not only an illustration of the subject, but rather an abstract visual interpretation of light and heat. Karla lets the canvas glow by the choice and application of pigments. In this respect, the painting is perfectly embedded in her artistic creation. For her “art is the light of my life and that light is a divine light”, like she stated on her website.
Karla Higueros
Born in 1970 in Guatemala, Karla Higueros worked ten years in advertising and made her own artistic creations. Then she decided to dedicate her live entirely to fine arts and especially to her abstract paintings.
In her studio in La Antigua – the former capital of Guatemala in the time of Spanish colonialisation – she is surrounded by the rich Mayan culture and the indomitable nature of active volcanoes. Both are reference points, which find their reflexion in Karla’s paintings. She often uses radiant colours, well known from traditional textiles and artworks. Besides the colours, she appropriates sand for her oeuvre. Sand is the element coming constantly from the nearby volcanoes.
Other components are more immaterial, like emotions, spirituality and dreams. They find their expression, after a carefully consideration and a dialogue between the material and the artist during the process of creation, on large-sized canvas. Another module is the light that is inherent in most of the pictures. Every sentiment has its own and unique light, shaped by the arrangement of colours and forms, frequently supported by the structure giving sand.
Although, Karla’s inspiration is rooted in her geographic neighbouring and her personal inner live, the subjects are often universal. Her visual vocabulary, supported by pure natural colours without artificial adjustments, addresses the viewers inside. Therefore, her paintings found their way in many personal and group exhibitions in Guatemala, but as well in the United States, France and the Netherlands. Moreover, they are represented in private collections in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, the United States, Canada, Germany and Guatemala.
Karla lives and works in La Antigua, Guatemala.