Artist Ever Astudillo has died at the age of 67 in Cali, the city of his birth, where he lived and was the subject of his works. He belonged to a 1970s generation of artists in Colombia that overwhelmingly chose drawing as the main medium to render the urban landscape. Astudillo was a contemporary of photographer Fernell Franco and visual artist Oscar Muñoz with whom he presented an exhibition at the Museo La Tertulia (1979) centered on the city through realistically rendered works that were reminiscent of the aesthetics of filmmakers Mayolo and Luis Carlos Ospina, and of Andres Caicedo's literary work. Astudillo studied at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Bellas Artes in Cali. He began doing solo exhibitions of his work in 1973, the year in which he participated in the 2nd American Biennial of Graphic Arts in Cali with the work Composición No. 4 (Composition No. 4) and when he won one of the prizes at the 24th National Salon of Artists for the piece titled Dibujo No. 1 (Drawing No. 10). Focusing on poor neighborhoods in the city, his oeuvre evoked nocturnal landscapes and rendered haunting atmospheres. A singular poetry emanated from his compositions of blurred silhouettes and lines of street dwellers. Although Astudillo attained his somber atmospheres during the 1970s and 1980s mostly in drawings created with a black, white and gray palette, his production also contains examples of similarly chromatically minimalist paintings as well as photographs—many of which served as supports for his drawings. The artist acknowledged that he was greatly influenced by the neighborhood movie theaters—whose halls he represented—and by Mexican cinema in particular. His work was also greatly inspired by bars, brothels, grills, stores and several rumbiaderos (nightclubs) where salsa was the maximum expression of tropical music. Nonetheless his work remained somber and contemplative. Scaring away all the hustle and the deafening music, his visual commentaries—which always referenced photography—appear to follow one another in silence. An important selection of his work was displayed in a large retrospective titled "Of Urban Memory" presented at several cultural centers in Cali in 2006. Eduardo Serrano wrote the text of that exhibition's accompanying catalog. The book by Katia González titled Cali, Ciudad Abierta, Arte y Cinefilia en los Años Setenta (Cali, Open City, Art and Cinephilia During the 1970s) published in 2014, devotes a chapter to the study of Astudillo's work and contributions.