Cholita Mona Lisa: Bolivian artist gives famed portrait indigenous makeover

KALLA BAJA, Bolivia, June 1 (Reuters) – Excessive in Bolivia’s Andean mountains, surrounded by small thatched roofed homes and sheep, Claudia Callizaya, 32, makes the ultimate brushstroke to her latest piece of artwork: a tackle the “Mona Lisa” as an area indigenous cholita girl.

Her adaptation has the identical regular gaze as in Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece portrait and an analogous nostril. However on her head is the standard bowler hat of Bolivia’s cholitas and he or she is wrapped in a colourful Andean scarf.

“There are various ladies on the planet, with various kinds of clothes. I am Cholita, and I mentioned the Mona Lisa needs to be a Cholita, identical to me,” Callizaya mentioned.

Callizaya’s love of artwork started when she used stones from the fields close to her dwelling to color on. Now the only mom of two paints on canvas after getting a university diploma in fantastic artwork.

Cholitas, often indigenous Aymara or Quechua ladies, are typically from poor farming communities and have lengthy confronted marginalization within the Andean nation, which has the very best proportion of indigenous folks in Latin America.

She initially needed to be a trainer, first finding out schooling at a public school in El Alto, however discovered her vocation taking courses in artwork historical past the place she realized about well-known works just like the “Venus de Milo” sculpture and the Mona Lisa.

On the school, she got here up with the concept of incorporating well-known icons of female magnificence with the options and clothes of Aymara ladies like herself.

“I painted the Mona Lisa, with earrings, a cholita hat, and a blanket …, dressing the Mona Lisa as an Andean girl,” she mentioned. The portrait featured Bolivian aguayo material, a multi-colored materials typically used to hold infants.

Callizaya’s household totally embraces her ambitions.

“After I see my daughter drawing and portray, I really feel actually joyful,” mentioned Marcelina Mamani, her aged mom. “I all the time cried and requested God to provide her this reward.”

Since April, Callizaya has moved away from farming to work full time on the native ministry of tradition, and offered certainly one of her two Cholita Mona Lisa work in a pupil exhibition.

Reporting by Monica Machicao, Santiago Limachi and Sergio Limachi; Writing by Steven Grattan; Enhancing by Adam Jourdan and Richard Chang

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