carolyn castaño

Physiognomy of Tropical Vegetation in South America: After Humboldt & Berg 
works on paper
2016





Chapter III
Desert of darkness and fire


Chapter I
Interstellar Travel (pp. 17-18)


Chapter I
Interstellar Travel (pp. 17-18)


Chapter I
Interstellar Travel (pp. 17-18)

Physiognomy of Tropical Vegetation in South America: After Humboldt & Berg was an opportunity to immerse myself in a visual archive at the root of many interests. This work is inspired by two botanical explorers, Alexander Von Humboldt, who undertook multiple studies study of native birds, flowers and plants in the Americas, and Albert Berg, who painted the Magdalena River Valley in Colombia. Their maps, painted travelogues and scientific illustrations were essential documents and working tools of 19th Century colonialism, botany, and pharmacology. My own investigations use Humboldt and Berg’s rich legacy of botanical and geographical illustration as points of departure, evoking both abstract and figurative painting as well as the current political and ecological state of the Magdalena River, its sixty years of conflict between the Colombian government, Marxist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and narco-traffickers.