Art of Cultura-Cami Galfore

A little context: 

Magical Realism is all about feelings and emotions - about experiencing a situation that is "unreal," but you accept it as truth. A great example analogy is saying "she's crying a river" - of course she can't cry an actual river, but because you understand how sad she is, you envision the river and accept is as truth. It's certainly a bit of a trippy genre - and very different from surrealism (which deals with the dream world). 

Colombia is known for its Magical Realism literature (which is what inspires my work), so much so that the countries tourism slogan is "Colombia is Magical Realism." Encanto, the Disney movie, really highlights this! Magical Realism in Colombia was also born as response to the political trauma the country was facing at the time. In literature, it became a way to process, describe, and deal with socio-cultural issues the country was facing, while finding ways to remain connected. It was never about escapism, but rather processing reality and finding the "magic" in the everyday. 

Workshop:

Visitors will spend some time thinking about places or situations that speak to their identity -  core memories, places or events have changed them, or places or events that they cherish. They will then identify what colors, smells, sounds, forms, they "see" and sketch or write them down as a guide to their pieces.

Following their process they will begin their paintings. It is important to me that they don't worry about small details, but general senses (paint with emotion). I would hope for the outcome to be emotional abstractions that describe their experiences. Perhaps the end results will look like blurred memories that, even though they are not "realistic," they are true, relevant, and important. 

Just as Magical Realism accepts unreality as reality, this workshop will be about accepting abstraction (unreality) as reality and turning mundane or ordinary  memories into something magical.