In Kolaj #2, Ric Kasini Kadour tells the story of how collage helped a Venezuelan artist living in Paris create some of the most iconic and modern paintings his country had ever seen.
It was during [1950-1951] that Otero turned to collage. “I made many studies of flat colour organization using collage which did not take me anywhere until I began a series of compositions made with very narrow bands of different coloured paper arranged in order horizontal-vertical,” wrote Otero. The collages became a series called “Orthogonal Collages.” They represented a breakthrough and laid the foundation for his “Coloritmo” (Colorhythms) which curator Rina Carvajal called “one of his major contributions to the field of painting.”
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Image:
ColoritmoN˚ 10
by Alejandro Otero
20″x73″x1.2″
Duco on wood
1956
Collection Manuel Vegas Brandt and Marianne Vegas Brandt
Courtesy Alejandro J. Otero, Mercedes Otero Pardo, Gil F. Otero Pardo, and Carolina Otero Pardo