Johanna Calle

Critical text

Johanna Calle (b. 1965, Bogota) chooses to utilized only the colours already present on the paper of antique notarial archives, which form the basis of the works. The sober palette shifts greater attention to the drawing itself and its forms of forceful symbolic meaning. In the series titled Perimeters and Branches, with a typewriter Calle transcribes a Colombian legislation from 2011 called the “Land Restitution Law” onto land registry documents or old accounting ledgers. This law marks the first acknowledgment of the existence of armed conflict in Colombia. The artist analyses the terminology utilized, lingering over differences between the expressions “forcible expropriation,” “displaced persons” and “those who have abandoned their lands”. This law focuses attention on the consequences of the armed conflict in the expropriation of lands and the restitution of fields to farmers. With the typed letters, the artist reproduces the branches and leaves of trees that could be replanted on the boundaries. The trees thus become powerful metaphors of the inseparable bond between human beings and nature, channeling values like longevity, family ties and the spiritual pursuit of harmony between the vegetable and animal worlds.

Text by Irina Zucca Alessandrelli

The artist’s voice

My language is drawing. I have developed a visual grammar to communicate my thoughts. In my drawings I use signs, alphabets, manuscripts, texts and photographs to construct an image.