Painting for the Public
Revue Magazine has featured two local artists in La Antigua Guatemala who feel that art should be shared with everyone:
Painting in Public Spaces
by Laura McNamara
Budding artists Geovany Flores and José Luis López Godoy honored their former elementary school, Escuela Mariano Navarrete, with the gift of a vast, colorful mural.
What does the mural depict?
José Luis López Godoy: The central idea behind the mural is that it was created for primary children. It is focused upon Maya icons and iconography, mixing a lot of trends—from a little cubism, naive art and pop art—so that the children have a little art history.
Geovany Flores: The making of the mural was inspired by the Popol Vuh. The Popol Vuh is a sacred book of the K’iche’ Maya and narrates the creation of vegetation, animals, the first man made from corn, and, afterwards, the origin of the K’iche’ Maya. The Popol Vuh is like the Bible for the Maya … the perfect, human-divine creation for the gods are the men of corn. You can see in the central part of the mural a tree with corncobs. This narrates the creation of the first men. The tree also signifies the central axis of the universe and narrates the three planes that make up the terrestrial world.
What inspired you to make the mural?
Flores: José took the initiative and contributed the first ideas … he went to the school and spoke with the director. The director said, yes, we could make the mural.
Godoy: The kids gave us the inspiration. We did a quiz where we summoned all the kids to make a drawing of what worried or bothered them the most. In the drawings we found, with much surprise, that they were most affected by the violence in their lives. So we wanted to relate in the mural something more, showing different alternatives.
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