Jeannette Carballo Cruz. Jeannette Carballo Cruz was born and grew up in Naranjo, Alajuela, a land blessed by the abundance of Nature, which was to leave an indelible mark on the artist´s memory. Her childhood unfolds in the graceful atmosphere of a Costa Rica of times long gone: coffee as far as the eye can see, the exuberance of tropical vegetation, the straightforwardness of the people, and the moderation of their customs. The growing girl forms her beliefs and her observer’s eye records the images which she carefully stores in her memory.
Jeannette´s paintings tell us the story of these early experiences. Her minutely detailed observations bring together flora, objects and people in a chromatic harmony. Confident in her subject matter, the artist retraces – again and again – the never-ending paths of her childhood interpreting every memory with refreshed vision illustrating her beliefs.
From the beginnings of her career as an artist in the studio of the Nicaraguan painter, Alberto Icaza, in the 80´s, her works have been present in biennales and museums in the Americas and Europe. Today they are here, a harmonious landscape of weddings and motherhood, children and dolls, objects and vegetation, all of them in serene homage to the affirmation of traditional values, faithful reflections of the beauty and the truth of the inner vision of the artist. Haru Wells.

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MUSEO HISTÓRICO Dr. RAFAEL ANGEL CALDERON GUARDIA.

Experiences

The work of Jeannette Carballo is, above all, of great honesty. It takes pleasure in detail portrayed in simple everyday themes and typical figures of the rural areas of Costa Rica. These figures in her world are tranquil, as if wrapped in a divine peace, stationary and absent while at the same time dour and earnest; as if they have some great mission to fulfill on earth, they are free of the suffering of having to achieve, of the pressures and concerns of the great urban centres, they could be in any village of the Central Valley, or San Carlos or Limón.

Jeannette Carballo creates poetry by means of simple forms and figures that tell us of their world through fleeting images, like those moments of recreation and socializing of the people on their way to the church. The Church and its religious aurora pervade the landscapes of the work that we are exhibiting, as in, for example, “Epifanía (Epiphany)” or “Mi Boda (My Wedding)” or in the depiction of a particular mystery of the devout of the Catholic Church itself, as in “Los Angeles de Corpus (The Corpus Angels)”. These little angels, frightened girls all dressed up for the Eucharist procession, are captured at the precise moment in which a magic process is taking place: as the Sacred Form of the Corpus passes, the girl rises to a spiritual dimension portrayed by the artist in all its psychological profoundness. In addition, Señora Carballo brings us closer to this higher world, this Heaven which the Church promises, inhabited by archangels, as we see in “San Miguel (Saint Michael)”, and angels in “El Angel de la Guarda (The Guardian Angel)”.

Motherhood is another theme, which attracts this artist, seeking to explain in artistic terms the eternal circle of life.

Jeannette captivates us with her depiction of this sublime moment of a woman. Her delicate and ingenuous style, with its minute detail and richness of colour, is a veritable feast for the eye of the beholder.

This exhibition presents a range of themes from her life as an artist, spanning the period from her earliest works to her most recent. To really appreciate this ingenuous art you need to reach inside yourself and enjoy this spectacle of colour, beauty and magical characters, which always to a greater or lesser extent survives within each and every one of us.

It is for this reason that it gives us much pleasure to present the exhibition “Experiences”.

Luis Rafael Núñez Bohorquez
Director General of the Museum