Exhibition Reviews | Visual Arts
By Geoff Wichert on April 18, 2025 • ( Leave a comment )
“The Great Wall of China” by Ernesto Apomayta-Chambi.
If a painter was born and raised on a wild and rugged, scenic western mountaintop, near one of the world’s most famous lakes, and he chose through his art to celebrate the landscape and unique people he lived among, then it seems he ought to work in Utah, or at least his images should speak to how Utahns see the world. As it happens, Ernesto Apomayta-Chambi was born in the Inca community of Puno, Peru, and grew up inspired by the legend of nearby Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake, which is known both for the evocative ruins that surround it and its floating islands. Yet we find his work here, near Great Salt Lake, at the Utah Community Celebration Center.
This is Apomayta-Chambi’s second exhibition at UCCC, and any question of whether Utahns will reciprocate his interest in our state might be answered by response to two landscapes he brings from his many foreign travels. One is the Great Wall of China and the other is the ruined Inca city of Machu Picchu. Both are fabled places, but neither relies solely on history for its appeal. Rather, each is visually unique and spectacular in its own right. The Great Wall, with its promenade on top and steps climbing up and down the remote terrain, is actually a path that connects otherwise isolated stations that invokes the lonely lives of regular soldiers who protected the ordinary people who could live enviable lives behind it. Similarly, Machu Picchu hid its indigenous builders from the conquistadors, men on horseback with weapons and garments of metal who came with the sunrise to despoil and plunder populations defenseless against their technological superiority. All they could do was ascend the mountains and live unseen until they mysteriously melted away.
“A Peruvian Musician”“Cuzco in La Mañana”“El Quinto Sol”
As a lad growing up in Puno, Ernesto Apomayta-Chambi fell in love with art and wanted to learn how to make it, a challenge to someone living in a relatively remote part not only of his country, but of its continental location. Fortunately, like the Latter-day Saints of the mid-to-late 19th century, who created opportunities for the talented among them to study at home and abroad, Peru has made accommodations, and so young Ernesto was able to attend formal studies and learn not only the standard methods of painting, but a particular favorite of his: Chinese-style calligraphy and ink painting.
“Machu Picchu” by Ernesto Apomayta-Chambi.
There’s an entrepreneurial side to Apomayta-Chambi, who is currently auctioning a portion of his personal collection. A dozen examples are on display at UCCC, with about a hundred more online. Potential collectors will want to examine those that are here in order to have a sense of their presence, which is substantial. Potential visitors to Peru will find encouragement in works like “Santa Catalina Peruvian Kitchen” and, of course, “Machu Picchu,” as well as scenes of local color like “Toiling Under the Sun.”
Recently, the sentiment among those who direct and operate the UCCC has been to try to do more in response to community initiatives. So when Utah Global Diplomacy, a citizens’ organization with the mission to connect the world to Utah, “One handshake at a time,” as their motto promises, asked to stage a project called “Passage to Peru” at UCCC on May 9th, as part of their “Dining Around the World” series, it was only natural to include some space in the half-dozen galleries that connect the Center’s various large and small spaces. Given the negative controversy surrounding current events, those who want to do more than just admire art, but who want to come closer to its sources and inspirations, may want to look behind the canvas along these lines.
Exhibition Reviews | Visual Arts
Ernesto Apomayta’s Art Across Altitudes: From Machu Picchu to the Wasatch
By Geoff Wichert on April 18, 2025 • ( Leave a comment )
Passage to Peru, Utah Cultural Celebration Center, West Valley City, through May 9.