APUS

As a starting point for the search for identity and migration, Elsner Torres, although born and raised in Lima, comes from a family of Andean and Amazonian origins, which connects her to the events in these places in Peru.

 

In 2015, she took a trip to the municipality of Cuninico, in the northwest of the Loreto department in the Peruvian Amazon. This place is close to the Reserva Nacional Pacaya Samiria, whose rivers spilled 47,000 liters of oil in 2014.

 

After this experience, she carried out several projects on the subject, using Nogalina ink, which is similar to oil due to its dark brown color.

​

In her series Apus she portrays various indigenous leaders who, after the 2014 disaster, call on the Peruvian government and the world to protect the environment and fight for respect for life and the preservation of indigenous culture. In this series, the artist, who sees herself as an ally and wants to take an eco-feminist approach.

​

Two drawings of an Amazon landscape, painted with Nogalina ink and acrylic on "tobacco paper", accompany this series.

 

In addition to the content, these works of art also reflect the desire to make art more sustainable, for the environment and for one's own health: this meant replacing oil paint with the use of Nogalina ink and acrylic and finding a more environmentally friendly surface, such as: "Tobacco paper", which is waste paper from the industrial production of plastic placemats.