Renowned Colombian artist Fernando Botero has turned his eye towards the last days of the life of Christ as the inspiration for his latest body of work, which will be showing at the Marlborough Gallery in Manhattan, New York, as of December 2.
The new work, comprising of 27 oil paintings on canvas and 34 drawings on paper, is titled “Via Crucis: the passion of the Christ” and tackles the theme of religion with a sense of humor and modern twist not often seen in religious artistic depictions.
According to a report by El Colombiano, Botero wanted to depict famous images from christian theology becuase “for many years in history, this was the only issue that painters had to work with. I wanted to paint it too, but to bring it to life for modern art, and for myself.”
The hallmark of the paintings is Botero’s stunning use of color that bring the religious images to life, and of course his emblematic style of proportionally exaggerated or “fat” figures.
This will be Botero’s first New York exhibition since 2006, when he exhibited his critically acclaimed show of paintings dealing with the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003.
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