Ancestors: The Eternal Return by Jacqueline Unanue

This solo exhibition is inspired by the artist’s memories of her 1989 trip to Spain, where she studied the prehistoric paintings in the Altamira Caves of the Basque Country.

Jacqueline Unanue’s Ancestors Series symbolizes the ancient and sacred spaces that preserve her connection with her roots and with the ecological wisdom of her ancestors, always present as The Eternal Return. Unanue began this series by remembering her 1989 trip to Spain to study the prehistoric paintings of the Altamira Caves in the Basque country, the homeland of her paternal family.

The origins of humanity and its methods of communication have always fascinated her. Visiting the Altamira Caves —the original cave still open at the time— was a remarkable experience: “It was very impressive to see those majestic paintings and engravings on the walls in semi-darkness and to feel the presence of those animals, see the abstract and mysterious engraved signs, and to imagine the artists who created those paintings 14,000 to 35,000 years ago.”

For this series, she drew inspiration from the El Maule region in Chile and its rich rock art sites. She created a third large-scale canvas, incorporating it alongside the previous diptych about the Altamira caves in her Ancestors Series. “For me the result symbolizes the cultural fusion of geographically distant places and immemorial times into one concept: the common origin of all humanity,” she said.

Her work stems from a free interpretation of existing rock art signs and from symbols that emerge spontaneously from her ancient memory. Through these, she generates her own abstract and universal mode of communication. For this exhibition Unanue has invited her husband, Ricardo Guajardo-Romero, also an artist and designer, to create some paintings in tribute to his Ancestors as well.