Nohemí Pérez

Nohemí Pérez was born in 1962 in Tibú, Norte de Santander, Colombia, and lives and works in Bogotá. She studied at the School of Fine Arts in Barranquilla and later studied painting at the Academia Superior de Artes de Bogotá. Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses drawing, painting, embroidery, installation, and the use of archival images and documents. Her work is deeply rooted in the Catatumbo region of northeastern Colombia, a territory whose complex relationship between nature, history, conflict, and resource exploitation has remained central to her artistic research. Pérez’s practice explores the relationship between human beings and nature, focusing on the tensions produced by the exploitation and transformation of territories. Her work addresses the historical and political circumstances of Catatumbo, a region marked by armed conflict, forced displacement, extractive economies, and the presence of diverse communities. Rather than treating the landscape as a neutral subject, she uses it as a space in which ecological, social, and historical processes become intertwined. Drawing and painting occupy a central position in her practice. Pérez frequently works with charcoal on canvas, producing large-scale landscapes in which dense vegetation and monumental trees dominate the image. Within these apparently natural environments, however, small figures and scenes can reveal traces of human activity, violence, displacement, and economic exploitation. The resulting images establish a tension between the apparent serenity of the landscape and the histories that it contains. Her use of the panoramic landscape is also connected to the history of representation and the ways territories have been observed and described. According to Instituto de Visión, Pérez engages with the European tradition of the panorama and reclaims a visual language historically associated with the representation of distant and exoticized territories. By transforming this tradition through her own experience of Catatumbo, she brings ecological, political, and historical complexities into the foreground. A significant body of her work has focused on what she calls “subjects at risk,” particularly endangered species and the fragile relationship between human and non-human life. In *The Forest’s Bedding* (2021–22), presented at the SCAD Museum of Art, monumental charcoal drawings of trees are accompanied by almost imperceptible figures of birds, animals, and human beings. The works connect the natural environment of Colombia with histories of colonialism and armed conflict, while drawing attention to the possibility of more sustainable forms of coexistence. Pérez has presented her work in solo and group exhibitions in Colombia and internationally, including exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art of Cartagena, the Museum of Modern Art of Barranquilla, NC-arte in Bogotá, Museo Amparo in Puebla, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, MO.CO. Montpellier, and the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah. She has also participated in the 10th SIART International Biennial, the 15th Bienal de Cuenca, and the 36th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts. Her work is held in collections including the Museum of Modern Art of Cartagena, the Museum of Modern Art of Barranquilla, the Art Collection of Banco de la República, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Across drawing, painting, embroidery, and installation, Pérez continues to use landscape as a means of examining the connections between territory, memory, violence, and ecological vulnerability. Her work transforms the landscape from a simple representation of nature into a space where histories of conflict, extraction, displacement, and the resilience of non-human life become visible.