The Bolivian painter Cristian Laime, immortality through art

The Bolivian artist Cristian Laime opens an exhibition this Thursday at the Artivistas Gallery in Paris in which, with the title 'Anthropocene', he shows his spectacular work between modernity and tradition without giving up his Aymara culture. But before that he has been with Jordi Batallé in The Guest of RFI.

Cristian Laime, an internationally recognized and award-winning contemporary Bolivian artist, questions human activities and their repercussions on the planet's ecosystems. In a context of global ecological crisis, these reflections seem relevant and acutely urgent.

From a very young age, he has drawn on his Aymara culture to find a link with tradition and nature that protects him from a devastating society. In his work, two symbols are usually mixed: the figure of the cholita, his mother, with decorated and colorful clothes, and plastic, an emblem of unbridled consumerism. His paintings reflect his desire to keep Bolivia's cultural heritage alive, while his characters sometimes enjoy being enveloped by the promise of progress, sometimes suffocate in the face of excess.

Cristian Laime works in very large oil formats, which leave no one indifferent. An exhibition to take a break from our busy daily lives and reflect on our own responsibility in climate change.

Cristian Laime (La Paz, 1988) trained at the “Hernando Siles” National Academy of Fine Arts, then in Fine Arts at UPEA (El Alto). His work is regularly exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. He has international influence, especially at the Triennale de Arte Museo Latinoamericano in New York, at the Tambo Quirquincho Museum, at the Museo Nacional de Arte Museum, as well as the Alianza Francesa gallery in La Paz. He has also received several awards, including the LXVI Pedro Domingo Murillo Hall Management Plastic Arts Contest 2018 and the Eduardo Abaroa Plurinational Award.

Artivistas is a committed Latin American art gallery founded by Paula Forteza in 2023. Latin American artists and illustrators with whom we collaborate are defenders of vital causes of our time: ecology, feminism, democracy, social rights and the fight against all forms of discrimination.