The Hidden New York Lines of Maria Luisa Pacheco

This paper proposes a new reading of Maria Luisa Pacheco’s New York years (1956-1982) where she developed her acclaimed universal lyrical abstract vocabulary. Although her artistic production has not been studied in depth and often times her subject matter has been cast as a simple Andean landscape, this paper aims to broaden this reading with recent research and analysis that complicates further her subject matter and artistic output. The authors argue that her abstractions point to a reinvented essence in which she explored more organic subjects and a hidden sexuality in a vastly dominated male art world. An accomplished technician and colorist, her intellectual compositions follow a strict organizational geometric grid that allows her to explore figurative volume in space in a controlled gestural style where line is of importance. Her processes actively contributed to the new vocabularies as she embraced an abstract style of Tachism, Art Informel and Matter painting where color, texture and a tactile quality became predominant with various materials and techniques. The many intersecting identities as woman, divorcée, mother, immigrant, commercial fabric designer, and recognized Latin American artist in her day points to her hidden radical ways in need of reassessment.