Hidden behind each intricate pattern, lies Cecilia Paredes. Paredes serves as the main subject to the majority of her portraits, where she cleverly camouflages herself against the background using textiles and body paint.

“I wrap, cover or paint my body with the same pattern of the material and represent myself as part of that landscape. Through this act, I am working on the theme of building my own identification with the entourage or part of the world where I live or where I feel I can call home. My bio has been described as nomadic so maybe this is also a need of addressing the process of constant relocation.”

Who is Cecilia Paredes?

Cecilia Paredes is a contemporary and installment performance artist. Paredes, which suitably means wall in Spanish, has mastered the art of transforming into animals, plants, and camouflaging herself into various landscapes, conveying her theme of adjustment to different surroundings. Paredes has won countless awards, residencies, grants, and international art prizes. Paredes’s art is influenced by Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, Kiki Smith, Louise Bourgeois, William Kentridge, and Anselm Kiefer. Her most well-known series is called Landscapes, where Paredes uses body paint to camouflage herself into various floral backgrounds, tackling the issues of migrations, re-locating, and the longing to belong. The inspiration for the series comes from Paredes’ life experiences as a migrant from Peru.

Blue Landscape (2007)

Brief History of Body Paint

Bodypaint uses the human body as a medium to express messages, ideas, beliefs. Every artist has a different message behind every piece of work. Body painting has been around for some centuries, with some coining it as the worlds’ oldest art form. Some records show many ancient tribes from Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia often utilized body painting. Body painting was an essential part of the tribe’s daily life, spirituality, and rituals. Body painting was also important for celebrating various rites of passage, or milestones like puberty, marriage, coming of age, births, and deaths. Some ancient traditions that have traveled into the practices of modern society, can be found in places like India. Where Indian brides often incorporate bodypainting traditions into their wedding ceremonies. Body painting has a rich history, and its beautiful imagery and meaning being each piece have persisted. Modern body painters continue to use the art form for commercial projects, celebrations, and to express messages.   

Aboriginal men in bodypaint Source: Artlandish

Cecilia Paredes’ Early Life

Born in 1950, Paredes originally grew up in Lima, Peru, where she studied Plastic Arts at the Catholic University of Lima. Cecilia also studied in England at the Cambridge Arts and Crafts School. Paredes lived in Peru until the early 1980s, when she left amid a violent civil war.  “In summer of 1983, my family and I left Peru. That experience left me with an ache in my heart that never healed. My family left because we owned a newspaper that was expropriated by the guerrilla communist movement in Peru, Shining Path,” says Paredes. “As you can imagine, the consequence of losing your means by violent action are immediate, terrible, and somewhat indescribable. We did not have any economic support beyond the newspaper and our security was in question, so my family left Peru to look for work overseas. Leaving your country for any other reason than because you want to is very hard. Since then, I have thought of our departure from Peru as more of an exile.”  

The Flight (2000)

Eventually, she settled in Costa Rica, where she would stay for the next 25 years. Paredes had some resentment for having to leave Peru but later came to the understanding that it was a blessing. “After so many years abroad, I feel I was so lucky to stay alive, have a family and develop my career. But when I return to Peru, I feel a gap in my heart“, Paredes explains. Costa Rica is a beautiful country rich in wildlife and plants. Her accessibility to nature is what first inspired Paredes’ first photo performance series, “The Animals of My Time.” The focus for this series were marginalized animals – animals that she feels are often misunderstood. Paredes explains that she wants “to feel what they feel.” “It started in the year 2000; that was when I made the first works in the animal series. I placed some dragonflies on my back like wings. It was a very autobiographical work: I wanted to fly! I took a liking to impersonating animals,” Paredes explains. “I love Nature and I am drawn to marginal animals like skunks, armadillos, snakes … the ‘outsiders’ … I feel more comfortable with them.”

The Transformation (2003)

Animals of My Time: Cecilia’s Paredes’ Early Artworks

In one of her first portraits of the series, La Venada, Paredes transforms herself into a deer.  At the time of the portrait, body painting was not a widely practiced art form, so body art resources were scant. With little access to modern body art supplies, Paredes used mud and shoe color for this portrait. Paredes explains that there was not any editing done to the photo, but the contrast of the mud accentuates the whites in her eyes.

 Paredes created the antlers by making a mold from an actual pair that was lent to her by the Costa Rica Natural History Museum. Paredes developed some close friendships at the Museum, who would supply items for later projects such as “The Transformation.” She was able to reproduce the antlers with the mold using resin and patina. Cecilia’s inspiration for the deer came from the role the deer plays in Peruvian Andean mythology. The deer is split between the land of the dead and the land of the living. She explains that in some excavations, you can find the sculpture of the deer half inside the tomb and half outside.

La Venada (2002)

Also, during this time, Paredes created a portrait called “Snake Woman.” Paredes’ inspiration for this portrait came from her fear of the reptile. Being that Central America is full of many types of snakes, Paredes wanted to accomplish this piece to come to terms with her fear. The Costa Rica Museum of Contemporary Arts granted Paredes access to their basement for this project. To reproduce the way snakes bury themselves in the sand, Paredes glued imitation snakeskin to the side of her body and immersed herself under a truckload of sand. “Snakes go under sand so I bought 300 lbs of sand and buried myself under the sand,” says Paredes. As one could imagine, being buried in the sand was not easy. To overcome the difficulties associated with the project, Paredes had to change her mindset and “think like a snake.” “I had three times I had to start all over again because I was suffocating and I was not coming into terms, until I started to think as a snake. So, lower your positions, lower your cardiac rhythm until you stay still,” says Paredes. While under the sand, Paredes made a mental poem recounting her feelings at the time and understanding the perspective of someone who is under the sand.

Snake Woman (2002)

Paredes received the opportunity to exhibit some of her work at the Venice Biennale in 2005. The Papagallo (The Parrot) was one of the portraits that she displayed in her exhibition. The portrait featured Paredes covered in colorful feathers, perched, to resemble a parrot. Cecelia was inspired to create this piece after meeting a man in Costa Rica that had a parrots sanctuary in his backyard. Parrots were severely endangered, and people were poaching the animals to sell them to tourists. This prompted the man to rescue the animals and keep them. Paredes made a deal with the man and agreed to come to visit the birds once a week, for nine months. Each visit, Paredes would collect feathers that have shed from the birds. Eventually, Paredes collected enough feathers to create the shawl that she is wearing inside of El Papagallo. Paredes also expressed excitement for the man because he was granted funding from a network in Sweden. He now has a reserve called Piedras Blancas, where the birds will be released back to nature.

El Papagallo (2004)

Cecilia’s Migration to the U.S.

After living in Costa Rica for 25 years, the Central American country was what she considered home. But, after marrying her husband Jay Reise, an opera composer, she made the difficult decision to move to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Paredes’ move to the United States began an entirely new chapter for her life.  During this move, Paredes started a diary, which was she describes as “half writing on my skin of what I have left behind, half writing what she was encountering, half-dreaming about certain things.” This diary and move are what inspired Paredes; most acclaimed projects, the Landscapes series.

In Landscapes, Paredes photographs her camouflaged body and clothing into floral-patterned wallpaper and textiles, often, with just her hair and eyes being the only indication that someone is standing there. In many body paintings pieces, a nude or semi-nude female body is often used to relay a message about sexuality. For example, Trina Merry’s Urban Camouflage series uses body paint to camouflage models into iconic New York infrastructure. Merry aims to juxtapose the hard lines of architecture with the soft curves of the body, exploring the historical messages of gender placed on the buildings. This is not entirely the case with Cecilia’s work. Paredes explains that “Performance involves nudity one way or the other. The human body is a vehicle to express your thoughts. The series is not about the body, though. It’s about location so in this case, the body is part of the landscape.” Paredes states that “The theme behind all is relocation after displacement and migration and how one has to adjust in order to belong. Tough it is, but it has to be done, without forgetting our origin.”

Both Worlds (2009)

The desire to belong is an issue many other immigrants face, often not sure where they fit in or what home means to them. Dr. Aixa Perez-Prado, a senior instructor at the Florida International University, recounts her experience as an immigrant from Argentina. “For years I thought that my real home was Argentina and the house where I was born. Yet, I would visit Argentina as a child and teen and be teased for my strange habits and less than Argentine accent.  I would struggle to fit in but never really would. To this day when I go there I often feel like the ‘other,’ says Dr. Perez-Prado. “But then what about the place we childhood immigrants grow up – is that then home? I grew up in Buffalo, New York, a place very different from Buenos Aires in multiple ways. There I learned a new language and way of living, made new friends and became part of a new family when my mother remarried and had two more children.  I went to school in Buffalo, learned math, went through puberty, went to college, fell in love and had my first broken heart there. But was it ever really home? I am not sure. I was also ‘othered’ many times during my snow-capped Buffalo years.”

Landscapes

Each portrait in the Landscapes series reveals an aspect of Cecilia’s connection to new and former places. Describing the story told through the series of portraits, Paredes explains, “In the beginning, the image of the person is totally still. Then the person gets a little more confidence and starts moving along, mimicking the background with hands… And now, the background is gone, and it’s completely contained in the body.” Paredes uses body paints to camouflage herself into each background, she explains that “I chose a section of the design from the pattern that I have selected for the background. I begin by experimenting, painting my assistants. I take photos and then, when I am happy with the results, I paint myself or my assistants paint me by copying what I have done. It depends on which part of the body we are working with at the time.”

Paredes’ first piece of the Landscape series is “Skin Deep.” The subject of the piece is Cecilia, and she is standing, faced away, camouflaged into yellow and blue floral wallpaper. Only Cecilia’s top half is shown, with her hand tucked away in front of her, creating stillness in the photo. “Skin Deep” represents the beginning of Cecilia’s integration into the United States, calmly standing as she tries to integrate herself into a new environment

Skin Deep (2007)

The Landscapes series involves several pieces of textiles that help Paredes tell her story. “The textile itself is so essential to me. So absolutely essential, like the second skin, almost. I always go, wherever I go, the first thing, to a textile museum, to a museum of embroidery to see how they made the silk. I am a museum goer, like very intense amount. So, I really, really do believe in textile, in embroidery, in colors, how they define places, and how important it is,” states Paredes. “Let me tell you a horror story, but true. When they opened the anonymous graves of the killings in Peru, the only way they knew who was there was because of the textiles.” Textiles are essential in many countries and express the identity and culture of a region. African textiles are iconic for their bright colors and bold patterns. In contrast, many Asian textiles are known for intricate designs and floral patterns, such as the ones Paredes camouflages herself within “Asia.”

Asia (2008)

“Costa Rica My Other Self,” is one of the portraits that include influential textiles for Cecilia. In this portrait, she camouflaged into a black, green, and red floral fabric.  The textile influenced Paredes because it contained flowers that she recognized from Costa Rica, which she considers her second home. Cecelia expresses that wrapping herself in the fabric was to make a statement. Similar to the way people wrap flags around themselves or those who have passed away. 

Costa Rica, My Other Self (2007)

As the Landscapes series continues, the portraits illustrate the subject becoming more integrated into her environment.  As opposed to the first piece, “Skin Deep,” the subject in her portrait, “Art Noveau,” has moved and is now trying to mimic the background. “Art Noveau” shows Paredes camouflaged into a brown and gold brown wallpaper while she is mimicking the intricate detailing of the wallpaper with her hands. Paredes explains, “Now, in this case, the character is already feeling a little bit more at home, so she’s starting to imitate the landscape. The hands are trying to imitate the shape of the art nouveau shape behind.”

Art Noveau (2009)

Towards the end of the Landscape series, we find that the subject has abandoned her static pose and becomes one with the rest of the landscape. Cecelia’s portrait, Corinthian, shows that subject nearly wholly hidden with the black and white drapes in the background. “Corinthian” expressing Paredes finally feeling like she at home and now fully integrated into the landscape.

Corinthians (2014)

Cecilia Paredes’ Legacy

In her photo performances, Paredes uses her body to tell her story and the story of many marginalized beings in our society. Paredes’ “Animals of My Time” series merges her identity with animals that are often marginalized in our culture. Often these are animals who are neglected, feared, or face prejudices. Paredes’ uses her photo performances to become one with the creature at a conscious level, bringing some solidarity with how she and the world view them.  Paredes’ Landscapes series give a glimpse into the struggles of migration and the longing to belong. A narrative that resonates with many immigrants that have been forced to move to escape violence, find better opportunities, or for the good of their general welfare. Landscapes show the process of Paredes being introduced to a new environment and slowly becoming more antiquated with it, though she did not realize it at first, “I always have a lot of doubts,” says Paredes. “But only after seeing a lot of my work on display before an exhibition I realized that I was telling my own story.”

 If you want to learn more about Cecilia Paredes and her artwork, we recommend watching her Artist Talk with the New York School of Visual Arts. Let us know which piece inspired you the most in the comments below!

https://youtu.be/cPIhGU45CW0