In this article, Venezuelan critic Víctor Guédez analyzes a series of paradoxes that are present in the work of the artist Oswaldo Vigas that fluctuate between the motivations pursued by the artist, the viewer’s reactions, its thematic meaning, and its formalized solutions. The dialectic association designated by Guédez is defined between the rescuing of a mythical/ancestral substrate and the wish to dismantle the different discourses and hopes of the technified world. The critic takes into account the psychological impact these themes and expressive properties bring about which derive from a strong existential and emotional component. The analysis focuses on the recurrent motif of the series Las Brujas and its function as an expression within this dynamic. 

Even when there is mention that the work by Oswaldo Vigas (1926?2014) shows an affiliation with Americanized themes and their consequent search for a continental identity, the critic Víctor Guédez does not limit himself in deploying other meanings and dynamics beyond the merely mythical interpretation. In a sense, Guédez draws a paradoxical relationship between the instinctive and rational aspects, on one hand, and the historical contents with their contemporary solutions, on the other. Lastly, he detects a nearly elliptical relationship in Vigas’s work between the earthly and archetypical elements present and their functioning as a tool that questions the contemporary world. The “convergence of opposites” to which the critic alludes manifests expressive forms of understanding the work in consonance with the current thoughts and trends of the early 1980s: that is, a consciousness of the decline of the grands-récits [grand universal narratives]; the disillusion with the technological world and its illusion of progress; and the need to articulate plural and contradictory realities. This essay, written on the work by Vigas, moves away from those widely written in earlier decades, therefore updating the themes presented by Vigas following the main issues at the time.

[With regard to Vigas’s work, see in the ICAA digital archive the text by Marta Traba “Oswaldo Vigas / Pinturas 1943–1973” (doc. no. 1106962), as well as the one by Roberto Guevara “Vigas: proceso abierto” (doc. no. 1152753). Roberto Montero Castro interviewed him in “Oswaldo Vigas. La lucha por descubrir la identidad americana” (doc. no. 1168108), as did Lenelina Delgado in “De la pintura al tapiz” (doc. no. 1153365), Lucila Velásquez in “Vigas el de hoy: reflexiva evolución de la obra de ayer” (doc. no. 1153202), Emilio Santana in “Superemos la pugna de abstractos y figurativos: propone Oswaldo Vigas, el pintor que cultiva ambas tendencias” (doc. no. 1153298), and Graciela Schael Martínez in “Oswaldo Vigas y sus 23 años de pintura” (doc. no. 1153282). Additionally, see the text by Juan Liscano “La reiteración de Vigas” (doc. no. 1152769); by Joaquín Gabaldón “La monstruosidad en el arte” (doc. no. 850831); by Robert Montero Castro “Vigas en el ojo ajeno-Plástica e identidad latinoamericana” (doc. no. 1153266); the article by A. Feltra “Vigas sufre de afán publicitario” (doc. no. 1155580); and lastly the text by Armando Romero “Oswaldo Vigas: ritos elementales, dioses oscuros” (doc. no. 1153573)].