Discipline
Interdisciplinary and painting
About the artist
Wynnie Mynerva was born in Villa El Salvador (Lima) in 1992. They live and work in Lima.
Their practice expands on the theory of gender, taking on the process of transitioning as a starting point to develop both a pictorial aesthetic and an alternative narrative to navigate the evolution of their body in accordance with a more authentic self. As an artist, Mynerva is deeply aware of the social transgressions their projects in detail, it is a conscious almost instinctive drive to push boundaries and explore, and for that they constantly return to their body. Their work transits and widens the limits of the flesh, the body and desire. They don't paint mere fictions but bodily possibilities. Their paintings are a vibrant extension of their body, an erotic and synthetic field of plastic exploration. Their pieces are both pictorial and performative. The pigment on fabric and plastic operates on the same level as the incisions they choose to make on their body: both are technologies aimed at disrupting the normative truth of sex and gender.
They see my work as the echo of a furious collectivity that refuses to accept patriarchal fantasies and heterosexual paradises shaped by the standard.
Raised in the suburbs of Lima, in a place where prostitution, domestic abuse and drug deals occurred in broad daylight, their childhood had a definite effect on how the artist approached both their assigned gender (female at birth) and their understanding of sexual relationships. Their work delves deeply into the violence and rage of those marginalized and violated while also providing an optimistic outcome. A better place, for those who chose to transit the process of self discovery.
Mynerva graduated as a Bachelor of Arts with a specialty in painting from the National Academy of Beaux Arts of Lima, after studying art history at San Marcos National Major University. Their pictorial references vary from the classical to the contemporary, borrowing fluidly from Rubens and Artemisia Gentileschi or from Cecily Brown and Warhol with equal ease. Their color palette has been deeply influenced by their origins, Peru's vibrant drag community and chicha aesthetics.
“La muerte no se escribe sola”, charcoal on paper, 70x60cm, 2024