About the Artist

(Born 1947, Guatamalan)

Mayan Life:  Source and Symbol  The Paintings of Nicolas Reanda Quieju was the exhibition title staged at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona  October 26, 1999 - September 1997.  They published a 46 page color catalogue for this show.  Twenty years earlier his first exhibition at the Heard Museum took place.

Reanda's work has been exhibited at the Museo Ixchel del Traje Indigena de Guatemala in Guatemala City (1979); the Institute Cultural de los Condes in Santiago, Chile (1980); Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico (1981); the Escuela Nacional de Artes Platicas in Guatemala City (1984); the Menlel Palacio Nacional de Guatemala in Guatemala City (1987); the Centro Cultural Vortice in Madrid, Spain plus five other sites in Spain.  In 1992 Reanda received an honorary award from the Cultural Department in Guatemala.

Reanda's paintings offer several levels of experience.  First he is providing a visual recording of his memories of day to day life as a Tzutujil-Mayan man.  There are also references to cultural practices, some of them originating with the ancient Mayan civilization.  His depiction of the clothing worn by the people in his paintings are wholly accurate according to a Latin American textile scholar.  Reanda's paintins are referred to as "Arte Indigena", "Arte Primitiva" or as "Arte Popular" by the international art critics.