Andrea Osuna is a graphic designer, photographer, and visual artist. She graduated with a bachelor of Graphic Design from Universidad San Carlos de Guatemala (2012) and studied photography and project management at Fototeca (2014). This year she started to create pieces using photography as the primary technique and experimenting with video and performance.
Osuna uses art as a possibility to question and find her own identity. She recognizes the ambivalence of her place in society as a Latino woman, which is reflected in her projects. It is an invitation to dialog and question our place in society, and how this is shaping our perception of reality. In her work November’s Hues (2022), the artist makes a video where you can see the documentation of her clothes taking solar light for an entire day and then being vacuum sealed to move to Portland, OR. With this act, she talks about the stationary depression that can come from not having enough sunlight, and how life was about to change by moving from Guatemala to Portland, OR.
Independence Day Action (2021) is a work that invites us to recontextualize Guatemalan Independence History. It makes an analogy with a piece of Seyten that is considered like “chicken”, but it is only flavored flour. Osuna questioned if the independence of Guatemala was an act that looked for the benefit of all the citizens, or if it was only a way to benefit the elite.
In her work “The fallacy of balance” (2020). She made an analogy between balance yoga poses, the balance in life, and everyday fragile objects. In a second moment, she researches the body in nature, also taking photos of a puzzle reflection with the sky, just as the object appears like a body that has balance, and vice-versa. The experimentation between different objects and the woman's body is a reflection of the balance that is demanded from women and their different roles in society.
In Tula (2018), she works with her emotional family side. She invites her father’s grandmother to explore different recipes of traditional Guatemalan food in a way to approach her without having to talk about sharing wounds. The textures and colors of the images make life and food tangled. There is also a mysterious and confidential side of Tula that talks about independence ideals and life advice.
Grace upon grace (2017) is a piece that encapsulates every day at the same time, (11:11); through the curse of a year. Osuna takes a picture of the sky, the result is a video of 39 seconds and photographs that suggest how fleeting life is and reflects how life escapes from our hands.
In the piece Additives (2016), the artist works with concepts of change and modification that the end of relationships brings. The latex-like chosen material suggests a layer of skin. Even a thin layer is not necessarily superficial because it hurts when she is trying to peel it and clean herself. It also adds up layers that become part of how you are.
In her work “Spasms of loneliness” (2014) Osuna explored the strong changes of life followed by repairs, which are experienced and overcome alone. With the use of a wood crown, she materializes the ideas that go around the head, questions that squeeze and hurt, but are also what bring the possibility of resilience.
She has been part of collective exhibits like Guatephoto (2015) and Galería Abierta (2016, 2017,2020) and was awarded first in 2016 and second in 2017 and 2020.