Mario Murua
Claude Lemand, Mario Murua.
Born in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1952. Lives in Paris. He is one of the major Latino-American artists of his generation, supported by Roberto Matta who considered him as a spiritual son. He reached France at the end of the 1970s, expelled by Pinochet. His oeuvre is rich in surrealist magic and sensualist visions. It easily found its place on the French artistic scene of the 1980s. He founded the group ‘Magie-Image’ in 1982, comprising of the artists Cogollo, Aresti, Kaminer, Zarate and Cuevas. This group’s aim was to rebel against European formal art and to develop what Wifredo Lam and Roberto Matta had started. Mario Murua’s artistic world lies within a mystical ambiance. It is inhabited by fantastic creatures and by symbols drawn from archaic South-American cultures, creating a world that dreams of a primary humanity and an untouched, magical beauty.
Translated from French by Valérie Hess