Claudia Martínez Garay at National Gallery Victoria International's Triennial 2026-2027

 

Hold Everything Dear (2024) is a 8.4m-long mural centres on the figure of a naked woman hanging from her feet. It references a colonial chronicle describing how women who “misbehaved” were punished. “I’ve been reading a lot of scholarship, from people like Argentinian anthropologist Rita Laura Segato, on what a more equitable future for women could be,” says Martínez Garay.
– The Guardian, From the Andes to Amsterdam: the artist reimagining indigenous cultures, Dale Berning Sawa, 22 Aug 2024

 

 

Claudia Martínez Garay (b. 1983 in Ayacucho, Peru) studied printmaking at the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Peru (PE) and was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (NL) from 2016 to 2017. She works between Amsterdam (NL) and Lima (PE). Martínez Garay’s practice encompasses painting, sculpture, printmaking, video, and site-specific installation. As well as interrogating European museum collections and histories, Martínez Garay also takes inspiration from her own Andean heritage, exploring historical images, propaganda, and sounds from her home country. Her sculptural works often reference pre-Columbian knowledge systems and are often combined in larger installations in dialogue with symbolic elements derived from her research.