Description
This jaguar, or otorongo in Quechua, was created as part of Vasquez Yui’s series The Council of the Mother Spirits of the Animals, which advanced a spiritual understanding of ecology. The feline confronts our human gaze, as if acknowledging the devastating losses of habitat in the Amazon Jungle. The cat’s spotted fur is elaborately rendered in finely incised and painted patterns called kené. These designs represent worldviews and energy pathways and can be evoked in song to promote healing.
Provenance
Celia Vasquez Yui (Shipibo, born 1960), Pucallpa, Peru, 2020; consigned to Salon 94, New York, 2022; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2022.
Accession Number
263970
Medium
Coil-built clay with pre-fire slip-paint and vegetal resins
Dimensions
58.5 × 33.1 × 44.5 cm (23 × 13 × 17 1/2 in.)
Classification
ceramics
Credit Line
Arts of the Americas Discretionary Fund