Cecilia Paredes Peruvian, b. 1950

Overview

"I wrap, cover or paint my body with the same pattern as the backdrop and represent myself as a part of that landscape. With this act, I am building my own identity through the entourage or the part of the world where I live, or where I feel I can call home. My bio has described me as nomadic so maybe this is also a need of addressing the process of constant relocation. Another preoccupation I have in mind is the fact that flora as we know it, is coming to be endangered. I think that in my work, aesthetics bind with anthropology in order to register fragments of my personal and social memory."

Cecilia Paredes
Works
  • Cecilia Paredes, Crisalida, 2023
    Cecilia Paredes
    Crisalida, 2023
  • Cecilia Paredes, Magical Rose Garden, 2023
    Cecilia Paredes
    Magical Rose Garden, 2023
  • Cecilia Paredes, My Galaxy Blue, 2023
    Cecilia Paredes
    My Galaxy Blue, 2023
  • Cecilia Paredes, Rose Garden Hand, 2023
    Cecilia Paredes
    Rose Garden Hand, 2023
  • Cecilia Paredes, Six Ways to Look at the Stars, 2023
    Cecilia Paredes
    Six Ways to Look at the Stars, 2023
  • Cecilia Paredes, Tapisserie, 2023
    Cecilia Paredes
    Tapisserie, 2023
  • Cecilia Paredes, Clorinda, 2022
    Cecilia Paredes
    Clorinda, 2022
  • Cecilia Paredes, Daphne in Repose, 2022
    Cecilia Paredes
    Daphne in Repose, 2022
  • Cecilia Paredes, Daphne Tall, 2022
    Cecilia Paredes
    Daphne Tall, 2022
  • Cecilia Paredes, Gardenia Dream, 2022
    Cecilia Paredes
    Gardenia Dream, 2022
  • Cecilia Paredes, The Afternoon, 2022
    Cecilia Paredes
    The Afternoon, 2022
  • Cecilia Paredes, Blue Flight II, 2021
    Cecilia Paredes
    Blue Flight II, 2021
  • Cecilia Paredes, El Susurro (The Whisper), 2021
    Cecilia Paredes
    El Susurro (The Whisper), 2021
  • Cecilia Paredes, Vuelo Azul (Blue Flight), 2021
    Cecilia Paredes
    Vuelo Azul (Blue Flight), 2021
  • Cecilia Paredes, De Alas y Espinas (Of Wings and Thorns), 2020
    Cecilia Paredes
    De Alas y Espinas (Of Wings and Thorns), 2020
  • Cecilia Paredes, Eve, 2019
    Cecilia Paredes
    Eve, 2019
  • Cecilia Paredes, Forest, 2019
    Cecilia Paredes
    Forest, 2019
  • Cecilia Paredes, La Travesia (The Voyage), 2019
    Cecilia Paredes
    La Travesia (The Voyage), 2019
  • Cecilia Paredes, Private World, 2019
    Cecilia Paredes
    Private World, 2019
  • Cecilia Paredes, Zanzibar, 2019
    Cecilia Paredes
    Zanzibar, 2019
  • Cecilia Paredes, Hermitage, 2017
    Cecilia Paredes
    Hermitage, 2017
  • Cecilia Paredes, The River Within, 2017
    Cecilia Paredes
    The River Within, 2017
  • Cecilia Paredes, Corinthian Blue, 2014
    Cecilia Paredes
    Corinthian Blue, 2014
  • Cecilia Paredes, La Dorsal, 2014
    Cecilia Paredes
    La Dorsal, 2014
  • Cecilia Paredes, Mercury, 2013
    Cecilia Paredes
    Mercury, 2013
  • Cecilia Paredes, Flow, 2010
    Cecilia Paredes
    Flow, 2010
  • Cecilia Paredes, Feet and Tree Roots
    Cecilia Paredes
    Feet and Tree Roots
Biography

Multidisciplinary artist in essence, Cecilia Paredes uses her body as a performative vessel merging painting, sculpture and photography. While she initially appears as the main subject in each of her “photo performance”, her work explores a wide range of themes such as exile, integration, connection to nature, as well as biocentrism. Playing an active role in the narration, the background of her compositions is often made of patterns borrowed from tapestry or wallpapers filling the entire frame including her body. Her identity, hence camouflaged in the backdrop, is distilled to a quintessentially feminine shape inviting the viewer to ponder the ways in which individuals are informed by their natural and cultural environments. Additionally, the omnipresence of vegetal or animal design depicts an ideal world where humanity blends in rather than dominates. 


Born and raised in Peru, Paredes’ political activism as a student in Lima in the 1970s forced her to leave the country. She has lived in Mexico and Costa Rica, and is now sharing her time between Philadelphia and Lima. Her nomadic lifestyle pieces together the motive for her need of addressing the process of constant relocation and displacement. Indeed, Paredes defines her life outside of Peru as a form of exile, a shearing away from family, culture and nature.


For the past 30 years, Cecilia Paredes has exhibited in the most renowned museums, from the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, to the Lowe Museum in Miami, USA, via the Royal Museum of Arts in Brussels, Belgium. Her “photo performances'' are now part of countless private, corporate and museum collections internationally. Additionally, as a conservationist she participates in seminars such as “Art changing attitudes towards the environment” which was organized by the United Nations in 2008.

News
Exhibitions
Events