Sandra Vasquez de la Horra: The Awake Volcanoes

Sandra Vásquez de la Horra reimagines the world through her playful drawings and sculptures, incorporating Latin American and European traditions into her unique artistic language. Sandra Vásquez de la Horra reimagines the world and deconstructs societal and cultural norms through her playful and surrealistic drawings and paper sculptures. Her work delves into shared and untold histories, trauma, desire, fantasies, and taboos. Born in Chile during the repressive Pinochet regime, she has lived and worked in Germany for decades, incorporating Latin American and European traditions into her unique artistic language. Her drawings - along with paintings, photographs, and films - explore mythologies, fantastical hybrid botanicals, diverse geographies, and text, with writing in Spanish, English, Italian, Latin, and German, that expands the possibilities of meaning for each image. She imbues the traditional technique of drawing with tactility by dipping finished drawings in beeswax, and she continues to challenge our preconceptions of what drawing can be by turning paper into three-dimensional sculptures. Sandra Vásquez de la Horra’s work invites us in and exposes the mysteries and intimacies of our shared experiences.

Raphael Fonseca is Curator of Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art at the Denver Art Museum. Cecilia Vicuña is a Chilean poet and multidisciplinary artist who divides her time between Santiago and New York. Christoph Heinrich is the Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the Denver Art Museum.