Cristo's Morbid Vision

Artist Cristo Hoyos and one of his funereal wreaths.

A wreath and noose.

Artist Cristo Hoyos believes that, during its long history of conflict, killing in some Colombian rural areas has become worse than horrific, worse than terrifying, worse than nightmarish: It has become boring and mundane.

Hoyos' work, now on display in the Gabriela Garcia Marquez Cultural Center in La Candelaria,
includes a series of flower wreaths embedded with violent symbols such as a knife, a noose and a weathered cow skull.

In Colombia, violence has been tied to the inequality of land ownership, Hoyos observed the other day at the exhibition. That's why his wreath series has a rural flavor.

Other Hoyos works portray impoverished Embera indigenous people, wealthy elite Colombians and displaced people, emphasizing the huge contrasts in a nation with a growing economy, a half-dozen billionaires, and millions of impoverished and victims of forced displacement.

Hoyos found the images for the exhibition, entitled 'Silence: Living Paintings,' in Colombian newspapers and magazines between 2008 and 2010.

Wealth and glamour. 

Displaced people.

Embera indigenous people from the Pacific coast region.

The other day, dining tables were set up in front of the paintings for a United Nations event.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours