Sábana de enero
- Mixed media (Oil and earth on wood)
- 107 x 107 cm
- 2025
- Enmarcación: Sí
- Certificado: Sí
$6.790
“A tactile cartography where earth and oil merge into a materic rebirth.” In Sábana de enero (2025), Miguel Betancourt elevates the Palingenesia series to a deeply organic dimension. This large-format artwork (107 x 107 cm) abandons traditional canvas to work on wood, using a blend of oil and earth that endows the piece with a unique geological texture. Under a solar light of blues and yellows, matter regenerates, creating a living surface that evokes sediments of memory and the strength of Andean soils.
Description
Sábana de enero: The Memory of the Earth and the Wood Support
This piece is fundamental to understanding the shift toward the materic in Betancourt’s recent work. Here, “palingenesia” is not merely a visual concept, but a physical transformation of natural elements into contemporary sacred art.
In-Depth Artwork Analysis:
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Earth as Pigment: By integrating earth directly into the composition, Miguel breaks two-dimensionality. The earth provides an opacity and granulation that oil paint alone could not achieve, symbolizing fertility and the origin of Andean culture.
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Wood as Foundation: The use of wood as a support is crucial. Unlike canvas, wood offers a resistance that allows the artist to scrape, layer dense coats of earth, and work with the firmness required by large-format mixed media (107 x 107 cm).
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Chromatic and Textural Symbolism: The contrast between the roughness of earth and the fluidity of yellows and blues creates a poetic tension. The work feels like a fragment torn from an ancient wall or a geological formation illuminated by the January sun.
“In ‘Sábana de enero’, earth is the origin and wood is the sanctuary. It is an artwork that seeks to touch the root of time through the materials that sustain us.” — Miguel Betancourt.
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“In Miguel Betancourt’s work, color is not mere filling; it is a living language that rescues the transparency of wax paper to remind us that light is the soul of form.”
Humberto Montero Estrella