Shirley Villavicencio Pizango (°1988, Lima) is a Ghent-based artist with Peruvian roots. The crossover between her South-American heritage and her life in Belgium is one of the main features defining her work.
Villavicencio paints her portraits at a whirling pace. She mainly uses acrylic, which has a fast drying period and allows her to paint in a preferred spontaneous manner. The artist rejects conventional perspective and uses vivid colours, often inspired by other cultures. By using the painterly process, she creates an intimate dialogue with her subjects. On a second level, Villavicencio’s paintings contain a subtle political message. She often makes people with a darker skin tone the protagonists of her paintings, without putting emphasis on their background. In this way she stands up to conventional exoticism, something present throughout Western art history.