Doris Salcedo
Doris Salcedo is one of the best known Colombian artists. Born in Bogota, this sculptor has worked around violence and inequality in the country. Her recent work and field of study is mainly the relationship between powers; more precisely, her vision about the standing of third world countries. Her art pieces, mostly abstract in meaning, are opened to a wide range of interpretations working as a starting point for reflections and thought more than as straightforward memorials or reproduction of events. She has been awarded a wide series of prizes and has exhibited in several countries where her polemic art pieces wave been appreciated and discussed by important members of the art world.
Shibboleth (2007)
Shibboleth (2007)
Sillas vacías del Palacio de Justicia, (2002)
Topografía de la Guerra (2003)
Plegaria Muda
Los Portales Art 
She has an amazing way of doing things, really different from the other artists. She is really inspiring for me, I really liked her way of expressing because it’s not usual to see something like that but it’s very beautiful.
I like her work because with simple elements such as chairs she shows the reality of society. For example, for me, the image of the crack reflect the social division of the society.
Doris Salcedo, is an artist that inspires people who have passed through tough situations in Colombia. Through her art, she is showing the sad reality of many Colombian people. I think she is more like an inspiration for them and for Colombian people and the country. She is making us see the art in a very different way by using different techniques and colors and making us feel the real intention of her art without talking.
I think Doris Salcedo is one of the greatest artists that Colombia has had; I like how she keeps her roots alive thought her artwork, how she accepts the fact of being from a world that has experienced certain stereotypes, that creates a big range of experiences in her. She also tells us that she has a creative freedom that comes from that little access that Colombians have to see different works of art; that creative freedom that Doris has is reflected in her artworks such as in the “Shibboleth” and in “Tipografía de la Guerra”, where she connects different human experiences and feelings and transforming them into her work. She shows events that already took place, untold stories from Colombian history that she wants to be known into the heart of Europe.
Doris Salcedo is an artist that basically shows the social conditions and the life in a country of a Third World. She uses Colombia’s violent history to portray it in an art work because she thinks that those events enhance art in many aspects. Also, she declares that art is not only for experts, but for someone that knows how to express things.
I find the work of this woman very interesting because she takes the art to another level, the level of interpretation and reflection about two important problems here in Colombia, the inequality and the violence. Topics in Colombian history that have been present for a long time.