Nubia Medina Invited to the Fourth Beijing International Art Biennale

Artist Nubia Medina has been chosen by an international jury to represent Colombia and join other artists from 80 countries in participating in the Fourth Beijing International Art Biennale, to be held in the Chinese capital from September 20 to October 10 of this year. The work Medina will take to Beijing is entitled Naturagua. It is the result of research that highlights the importance and exuberance of the tropical forests as life-sustaining and oxygen-generating loci that treasure endangered aquatic species facing pollution and indiscriminate industrial overfishing. In the face of the ecological disasters that afflict the modern world, this year the Beijing Biennale has selected artists whose work addresses environmental issues and human existence. Medina stands out for works that are expressionist in nature, a gestural and vibrant brushstroke that avoids naturalism and focuses on the qualities of color and movement below the warm marine light. Some of the works that led the jury to select this artist for the Biennale include a painting depicting crayfish and another of fish, two species that are affected by pollution. The Colombian artist studied at the Academia de Bellas Artes in Shanghai ¿ where she studied traditional Chinese painting from 1986-1987, and was a student of great masters at the School of Visual Arts in New York during the 1990s. Other artists who have represented Colombia in earlier editions of the Biennale include Ana Mercedes Hoyos, Edgar Bravo, and Carmenza Azcárate, to name a few. Medina's work will be shown at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, where more than one million visitors are expected to flock to the exhibition. Medina will also participate in a symposium on art and the environment with a paper entitled Arte + Ecología = Arcología, in which she will denounce the pollution - industrially generated - facing the Caribbean Sea as a result of the negligence of environmental authorities. Medina will also speak about the role of art in the preservation of our natural resources.