By Adriana Bianco*

Art critic Marta Traba has said that Ecuadorian art through the 1950s was influenced by Mexican mural art, social indigenism, and the work of the master painter Guayasamin. Then, vanguard artists pushed the edges in new ways around the world, and the Ecuadorian art environment experienced changes as well. During the 1960s and 70s, the “Rupture Generation” explored new plastic visions with innovative artists like Oswaldo Viteri, Enrique Tábara, and others, who lay the foundations for the new trends that future generations would explore.

Today, Ecuador participates in the world art scene through esthetic pluralism and the fusion of techniques and methods, all part of the globalization of art. Miguel Betancourt belongs to this eclectic generation of Ecuadorian artists, and he responds to these global artistic movements by following his own visual guidelines.

Betancourt was born in Quito in 1958 and discovered his artistic vocation early. “When my mother fell ill and the five of us were left alone, we were afraid we would lose her. My childhood was full of loneliness, and perhaps that’s why I began to paint. It was a recreational activity that would free me from the anguish of poverty and the absence of my mother. In any case, my art began in childhood. It was a refuge; I didn’t imagine it would become my profession.”

In 1976 and 1977, Betancourt studied painting at the Milwaukee Art Center in the United States. When he returned to Quito to finish his studies in Pedagogy and Liberal Arts at the Catholic Pontifical University, he rediscovered his native Ecuador–the presence of pre-Hispanic civilizations, the wealth of colonial architecture, and the grandeur of the baroque churches of Quito. He saw anew the color of the Andes and the beauty of the Ecuadorian countryside.

In 1988, the US State Department invited Betancourt on a cultural tour, and later, he received a scholarship from the British Council that allowed him to study in London and travel through Europe. Betancourt reflects on the impact this experience had on his work: “Those years of study, visiting museums, and being in contact with great civilizations, were very important for my art education. Both the discovery of my own country and my experience in the United States and Europe made their mark in my works. I had to assimilate those aspects and try to capture them in my paintings.”

Betancourt’s works range from figuration to abstract art. Some tend to a certain geometry, while others are more freely traced. He always seeks to fuse styles and techniques. Though a master in watercolor, he has not abandoned oils or acrylic. He explores collage and chorreado (a drip technique) and is just as likely to lay down light watery brushstrokes as impastos with heavy texture. His subject matter includes nature, Ecuadorian scenery, Andean references, architecture of days gone by, and small towns of the region.

Betancourt recalls when he sold his first painting: “It happened in 1974. I was participating in a contest in the Province of Pichincha and I received my first award. But on opening day, my painting wasn’t hanging in the Charpantier Gallery. I was worried, but Don Pablo, the gallery owner, told me that a Swiss tourist had purchased it.”

Other exhibitions, primarily of watercolor landscapes, followed in the 1980s. “Watercolor allows me a great deal of freedom. Sometimes I work with light brushstrokes and at other times with heavy impastos, with a mixed-media technique,” he says.

In 1993, Betancourt participated in the 45th International Art Expo at the Venice Biennial. That same year, he received the Pollock-Krasner Award. His works appear in private collections in Geneva and Vienna, at the United Nations, and in Ecuadorian and Argentine museums and collections.

In 2000, Western University in Sidney, Australia invited him to give lectures on Ecuadorian art and to exhibit at the Canberra Museum. Between 2001 and 2003, Betancourt did an itinerant show through Central America and was invited to several art biennials in Chile and Bolivia, as well as to the Cuenca Biennial in Ecuador where he participated in the “Ispirato corpo” theme by painting directly on dresses worn by models. In 2008, Luciano Benetton appointed him coordinator of the Ecuadorian office of the Ojo Latino Project, and in 2009, he exhibited in Argentina at the Volpe Stessens Cultural Foundation. Betancourt continues to be active with various projects and international exhibitions.

Miguel Betancourt defines his style in the following way: “I think my work has been fed by constructivist and expressionist movements. On the other hand, I have also had a free pictorial line, especially in the last few years. Right now, I am in a phase where I formulate themes on textured canvasses with very light, almost aerial, strokes spreading the colors several times.”

Color is perhaps, one of the main elements of his art. He confesses that he does have a particular favorite on his palette. “The color that has dominated my work has always been indigo. I relate it to Latin America and to visual experiences of my childhood in the Cumbayá Valley area.”

Betancourt usually paints in series because this allows him to encapsulate a concept and finish a visual process.

“My first exhibitions were 40 or 50 works grouped together. They were called Paisaje andino (1987), Selvaojival (1992), Arborescencias (1994), and Memoria vegetal (1995), and they are a testimony to my love of nature.”

Indeed, nature has been a continuing theme in his work, precisely because he grew up surrounded by the Ecuadorian landscape, a world of plants and volcanoes. Themes related to pre-Hispanic and colonial architecture also stand out in the series Piedra roja sobre piedra azul (1997); Edificaciones (1998); and Cuerpos más ciudades (2004).

In his series called Arte pictórica (2005), which was presented at the Metropolitan Cultural Center of Quito and included 26 drawings in acrylic done on cardboard and kraft paper, he returned to scenery and created a metaphor of sky and rock, accentuating the duality of levity and substance, movement and stillness. This series is also an exhibition of his esthetic ideal. “I believe that an artist must begin at his roots in order to arrive at the universal,” Betancourt says. “My Ecuadorian and ancestral essence is founded in the confrontation of international cultures. I try to lift up an art that assimilates those aspects and expresses those experiences. The challenge is to capture cultural richness and the beauty of nature and to be able to transmit it.”

*Adriana Bianco is a professor of Liberal Arts, a curator, and a member of the Art Critics Association (AACA). She has written several prologues and articles on art and collaborates frequently with Americas. Gabriel Gross is a Specialist in the OAS Department of Strategic Communications and Image. Artwork appears courtesy of the artists.