Otorongo
2020
Celia Vasquez Yui (Shipibo, born 1960)
Peru
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.
Coil-built clay with pre-fire slip-paint and vegetal resins