Page 192 - Masters

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MIRTA TOLEdO

Lives and works in Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

SEARCH THE ARTIST ONLINE www.mirtatoledo.com

Mirta Toledo was born in Argentina. She lived in the USA for twenty three
years and moved back to Buenos Aires in April 2007. This artist has exhibited
her artwork in Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Malaysia, México, greece and the
United States. In her country she received special recognition and awards
for her drawings and sculptures. In 1997 she was the recipient of The Estrella
Award for Oustanding woman in the Arts by the Hispanic women´s Network
of Texas.
Toledo’s works attest to her identity and the identity of all those fragmented
between two cultures, who have had to reconfigure their history on an ongoing
basis in order to incorporate new voices, while maintaining old voices, so that
they do not forget the origin of their trip. Her paintings investigate the enigma
of the self, propose possible worlds, and question the complex situation of
women in today’s world. How do women see themselves? And how do others
view them from childhood? Thus, a range of women seem to look back at the
spectators asking, “what do you see when you look at us?”
Her art explores and interrogates the existence, nested symbols of life, rebirth,
and freedom. women, flowers and birds burst onto her canvases. Childhood
returns on her painting about dolls. The thoroughness of her drawing tells of
a persistent pursuit of a look that stops in contemplation, to capture what
makes her or others who they are. In her painting of women with wings, even
in pain, the colours display vitality and reborn happiness. As in the poems of
José Martí, women are butterflies: Not because they are volatile, colourful,
or ephemeral, but for the intensity of their lives at every moment.
Any manifestation of art can adopt infinite faces and draw from countless
crossings. In the case of Mirta Toledo, her painting is pure poetry, one that
makes intelligible the inner world of the artist and her gaze on the environment
that surrounds her. Perhaps this is why her paintings provoke a relentless
movement to make sense of the already lived and the life to come. The
multicultural view of her artwork conveys that which transcends all borders
to those who, attentive to the present, find in art a way of learning, and, in
the respect for diversity, how to build a humanistic future.
verónica Castillo Pérez,Executive Director, Raices Culturales
Latinoamericanas / raicesculturales.org

Toledo says: Art is a magical tool that I use in a quest for identity. Although
the mass media imposes cultural ideals, humans are diverse and creative.
Through my sculptures, paintings and drawings, I show the beauty that exists
in human differences, developing a theme of work that I call Pure Diversity.
Diversity is the treasure of humanity; this is the message that I communicate
with my body of work.

 mOtHer OF JUareZ, 2006 ACRYLIC ON CANvAS 60x40 IN. /150x100 CM.
 sOUL, mY BODY Is YOUr HOme, 2008 ACRYLIC ON CANvAS 40x40 IN. /100x100 CM.
tWO tHat LOVe eaCH OtHer, 2007 MIxED MEDIA IN CARDBOARD 17x15 IN. / 43x38 CM. 
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