The Embassy of Ecuador in Korea, on the framework of the commemoration of its National Day inaugurates the exhibition “Ecuador Through my Dreams” by the Ecuadorian artist Miguel Betancourt. The exhibition will open to the public from the 1st to the 31st of August, 2017, at Superior Gallery, located at 945-5 Superior Tower (B1), Teheran-Ro (Daechi-Dong) Gangnam-Gu, Seoul.
The opening ceremony will take place on August 10th, 2017 at 16:00 as a tribute to the 208 anniversary of the First Call for Independence which took place on August 10, 1809, in Quito. This historic event gave Ecuador the nickname of “Luz de América” (Light of America) because this revolve inspired the eventual collapse of the Spanish crown in Latin America.
Miguel Betancourt was born in Quito, 1958. “In 1976 and 1977, Betancourt studied painting at the Milwaukee Art Center in the United States. When he returned to Quito to finish his studies in Pedagogy and Liberal Arts at the Catholic Pontifical University, he rediscovered his native Ecuador-the presence of pre-Hispanic civilizations, the wealth of colonial architecture, and the grandeur of the baroque churches of Quito. He saw anew the color of the Andes and the beauty of the Ecuadorian countryside.” (Bianco, 2010)
Betancourt has received recognition, including the Pollock-Krasner Award in 1993 conferred by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York. Additionally, two of his paintings are part of the United Nations art collections in Vienna and Geneva (UNIDO and UNAIDS, respectively and his artwork can be found in private collections like: Inter-American Development Bank (Tokyo), Diners Club in Ecuador, Istituto Italo-Latino Americano (Rome), Art Museum of the Americas, OEA (Washington D.C.), OFID (the OPEC Fund for International Development), Vienna; and Slade School of Fine Art (London).
The 34 paintings displayed at Superior Gallery were part of the exhibition “Trazos y Transparecias” (Strokes and Transparencies) which took place at Capital Library, in Beijing, in March 2017. Ecuador Through my Dreams is divided in 5 groups of paintings: trees, architectures, landscape, characters and assemblies. These artworks have been painted on different kinds of artisanal paper, among them rice paper. According to the artist, the exhibition combines new and old pieces with the purpose of exposing his career and technique’s evolution.