Norey
Agudelo's artwork has brought a significant new trend of painting
to the United States from South America. In a 1980 exhibition
at the Government Hall of Valle in Cali, Colombia, Ms. Agudelo
introduced a new concept called "El Primimodernismo,"
as a personal idea based both on her observation of the visionary
motifs in Pre-Colombian Indian art, and the styles of Universal
Modernism. Incorporating these principles into a theory she
describes as "Human Activation Through History," she
presents a sympathetic view of the human effects of major international
events, such as the 9/11 tragedy. Noriam's art elevates the
spiritual sense of human drama. |
Over
the years, Noriam's
paintings show a
development through several stages of her personal artistic
style. In earlier work, color usage goes from gradations of
muted colors within various tonal ranges but evolves in later
work into expressions of harmoniously contrasted bright rhythmic
values. The composition of the canvas field evolves from topological
layouts of similar figures into a deeply inspiring and poignant
telling of the story between two or three figures -- including
symbolized forms such as the white dove of an ascending soul.
In "Human
Rescue," a mural painting, Norey Agudelo uses stylized
figures combined with flat color to empahsize man as a suffering
yet universal being. In a later work,"Flight of the Lambs,"
her figures are charged with highly expressive color and form,
and through a triangulation in the placement of the two figures
and a dove, tell the story at a glance. Focus is placed at
the center of human emotion. Facial expressions are refined
into three-dimensional personalities with sensitive and subtly-expressed
individualities, each providing an evocative depth of human
understanding -- primary colors, like red and yellow, for
primal feeling. From the complexity of backgrounds of flat
colors depicting surreal locations there emerges the later
interpretations of textured multi-layered dimensions: spatial
realms which appear real but seem beyond time.
Ms. Norey
Agudelo's work as a teacher and an artist represents a deep
and significant contribution to a Humanistic interpretation
of life in our time, and the evolution of pictorial art itself.
Born in Pereira, she obtained a degree in 1975 in Visual Arts
from the Popular Institute of Culture in Cali, Before coming
to live in the US in 2001, she was Department Director of
the Arts School, and art teacher at Alfredo Vasquez Cobo College
and at Colombo Britanico High School in Cali. In addition
to the 1994 exhibition of her work at the UN, her artworks
have been exhibited around the world -- in Colombia, in Mino,
Japan, in New Haven, CT, and in New Jersey museums in Bergen,
Passaic, and Patterson. She has donated large murals to social
causes for the International Immigrants Foundation of the
UN and the Consulate of Colombia in New York City. She has
written her research on the civic expressions of art, and
the appropriation of public spaces, and has received many
well-deserved certificates of honor and achievement.
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