"Fuego en la Sierra" (Fire in the Sierra) is dedicated to fire and represents a blaze. The painting seems almost abstract with its strong purple background and black vertical lines but actually represents the aftermath of an unexpected fire in an indigenous community of the Wiwa tribe who live in the Sierra Nevada region of northern Colombia. A "moloca“ or ancestral long house used by the natives of the Amazon has been burned to the ground after being struck by lightning. The black lines are the carbonized pillars of the house.
Beatriz González‘ works often explore the socio- political turmoils of the violence-stricken history in Colombia. Based on images of newspaper clippings or tabloid photographs, the respective scenes are repetitively processed by the artist within her paintings, drawings and serigraphies leaving iconic traces within the memory of the beholder.
