Hambre 

Curator: Here we have Oswaldo Guayasamin’s painting “Hambre,” or “Hunger.” He used oil paint in stark blacks and whites to capture a figure in profound distress. Editor: It's immediately arresting. The dramatic contrast and the distorted, almost agonized face really communicate a visceral sense of despair. Curator: Indeed. Guayasamin's engagement with the Black Arts Movement, modernism, and expressionism informed his focus on the social conditions of labor and poverty, and this piece speaks to those themes quite directly. Editor: Looking at the application of paint, there's a rawness in its materiality. The brushstrokes are thick and expressive, creating texture that amplifies the emotional intensity of the image. There's a striking tension between the smoothness of some surfaces and the rough impasto elsewhere. Curator: That tension speaks to his process, and I’d add it reflects the complex socio-economic environment in which Guayasamin worked and the inequities he critiqued. Consider the hands. So large and prominent. Labor is a focus but also a desperate need. Editor: The way those hands frame the face is almost suffocating. They could be protecting the figure, or perhaps they represent the barriers, the struggles that are trapping them. Note also how the palette of black and white enhances the figure's visual structure as form, lending to the subject an abstract or ethereal quality. Curator: It is about access to material necessities and also about political suppression. Guayasamin was very concerned with those connections, making his practice a socially driven one. His choice of inexpensive and easily attainable material further roots his artmaking in his context. Editor: I’m moved by how the stark contrast serves both expressive and compositional goals in its structure; it simplifies the form to its essentials while also underscoring the starkness of the theme. Curator: It truly is a confluence of artistry and message that demands our attention, urging us to examine the world's injustices as much as Guayasamin did. Editor: For me, that striking simplicity helps to make it memorable; its emotional punch is heightened by the artist’s consideration of material, contrast, and, form, leaving a resonating expression that lingers with the viewer.