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MARCELO SUAZNABAR

"I think that entering the studio every day at the same time and sticking to a routine is a matter of discipline. Sometimes you can break that scheme but I try not to do it, the right music can be suggestive to activate creativity and where my ideas and themes begin to flow onto 'the blank sheet'."

Biography

Was born in Bolivia, in 1970, in the mining city of Oruro, located in the mid-western part of the country. He is the youngest of six brothers, and is the son of Nestor Suaznabar and Ana Maria Solari. From an early age, he had a passion for drawing, motivated by his uncle Enrique Suaznabar, a professional photographer who lived in the same city. Focusing solely in drawings as the main motor of his creations, he showed a great interest in color form an early age and began exploring watercolors, pastels, and colored pencils. For a long time, he focused on painting insects, animals, houses and portraits on paper and cardboards. Marcelo developed a great amount of his work in his birthplace, the city of Oruro. Oruro posses a mystical energy in its surroundings and has a strong folkloric tradition; its carnival was declared by UNESCO as Oral and Intangible Patrimony of Humanity. The cultural richness of the city's manifestations contributes to creators, granting the artist enough incentive to cultivate his work. In 1988, Marcelo traveled with his father and Marco, his brother, to the colonial city of Potosi, located south in the country, where they spent days visiting churches and museums, admiring the immense cultural richness expressed in the architecture and the ample collections of colonial paintings. The House of Coins and Convent of Saint Teresa were the incentives that led the artist to recreate sacred scenes, and with the artwork Coronation of the Virgin (1988), Marcelo began his series Sacred Art. During this period, Marcelo was invited to participate in a collective exhibit at the French Alliance and the Cultural House (Centro Cultural) Using the same series, he made an individual exhibit in Spain's House (Casa de Espana), in the city of La Paz, where he received in 1991 an honorable mention for his work Judgment's Cart in contest Spain 91. In 1992, Marcelo traveled to Chile. It was in Santiago where he attended and completed a four-month course at the Art School of the Extension Center at the Catholic University under the tutelage of professor Roberto Farriol. In 1993 he was selected for the exhibit Four Young Artists at the art gallery of the BHN Foundation in the city of La Paz. In 1999, he was invited to participate in the International Exhibit II Biennale of Visual Arts of the Mercosur in Porto Allegre, Brazil. The theme of ecological damage at global level motivated him to make a series of artworks dedicated to life and nature. The series titled Living Nature, Still Life was shown a year later at the National Art Museum in the city of La Paz, Metropolitan Museum of Monterrey. Monterrey-Mexico and Ex-Convento del Carmen Museum, Guadalajara - Mexico. Suaznábar has exhibited extensively in Latin America, Europe, Canada and the US with 40 solo exhibits and over 200 group shows. In December, 2001 He move to Canada and in this new stage he continues to progress forward using a surreal and symbolic language, an aesthetic language that covers all of the work. In the three series, Apocalyptic, Angels, Archangels and Magical Altiplano, Marcelo finds his own unique language. Marcelo's sets his imagination free in his work, exploring and examining the elements of unconsciousness. This including, universal and common themes that preoccupy human beings: passing of time, death, nature, sexuality, beauty, temptations, fear, and world religions. These themes are evident in each of Marcelo's paintings.

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