Ivonne Portillo

Barcelona, Spain

“Since time immemorial, indigenous peoples have known how to leave a respectful trace.”

Barcelona-based Colombian artist Ivonne Portillo’s art celebrates the diversity of the peoples and landscapes of Latin America. With abstract representations of landscapes and nature, she emphasizes the historical memory of indigenous peoples, many of whom structure their worldview around reciprocal relationships between humans and nature.

Portillo’s woodcut prints transform the shapes of the earth and its textures into carved and engraved topographies. Forests, mountain ranges, and bodies of water are distilled to line and color, with intersections, adjacencies, and layering reflecting their natural counterparts. Her prints represent diverse landscapes, much like the Latin American lands which shelter 60 percent of the planet’s biodiversity.

In Portillo’s woodcut prints, the materials speak of the interdependent relationship between nature and society. Paper and burlap–plant fiber materials used by humanity for millennia–represent the basic and essential. The metallic colors represent the mineral richness of the earth: precious metals that were transformed by the indigenous goldsmiths of these territories. The art of wood engraving integrates these two materials, creating a unique imprint in each work and leaving a trace on the essence of the earth, just like people do when they inhabit a landscape.

Barcelona, Spain

Achikanain, 2020

Woodcut and collage on burlap

Achikanain means “footprint” or “trace” in Wayuunaiki, the language of the indigenous Wayuu people who inhabit the northern tip of South America. This woodcut prints a trace representative of a diverse landscape, much like the Latin American lands which shelter 60 percent of the planet’s biodiversity.

Courtesy of the artist

Barcelona, Spain

Madre Blanca, 2020

Woodcut and collage on paper

“Patagonia is called the White Mother by her children,” wrote the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral in her verses to the remote land. The White Mother sees 47 great glaciers grow on her ice of the Austral Andes, including Perito Moreno, the ever-moving colossal frigid glacier.

Courtesy of the artist

Cocuy, 2020

Woodcut on paper

In the mid-nineteenth century, Colombia had 139 square miles of glaciers at the summit of its mountains. Today, there are only 14 square miles. In less than two centuries, the country has lost 90 percent of its glacier areas In the second half of this century, the six glaciers that are left will disappear, including Cocuy.

Courtesy of the artist

From Costa Rica to Argentina, the genus Cattleya paints the forests of Latin America with color. Cattleya aurea is the only yellow species with red “lips”–petals that function as a color guide for their pollinators. This species grows on treetops in the lowland forests of Colombia.

Courtesy of the artist

This piece is named after an orchid from the amazon: Acacallis cyanea. Orchids possess an important ecological role since they provide food for pollinators and contribute to the nutrient and water cycles of ecosystems. Deforestation, glyphosate spraying, and unrelenting harvesting threatens them.

Courtesy of the artist

Barcelona, Spain

Corianto, 2021

Coryanthes panamensis, an orchid found in Colombian and Panamanian forests, attracts the Euglossa bee–a green orchid bee native to Central America–with a sweet aroma.

Coryanthes’ flowers have a passage exactly designed to fit the Euglossa bee, which receives a package of pollen when crossing it to leave the flower.

Courtesy of the artist