Claudia Martínez Garay Critiques Western Archives
At GRIMM Gallery, London, the artist depicts everyday objects to highlight the insidious presence of colonialist legacies
At GRIMM Gallery, London, the artist depicts everyday objects to highlight the insidious presence of colonialist legacies

In a contemporary culture undergirded by maximalism, the powerful symbolism of a modest object can easily be underestimated. Yet, even a simple depiction of a flute, a religious uniform or a facial outline can hold multiple meanings. Celebrating the revolutionary potential of absence, Peruvian artist Claudia Martínez Garay’s ‘Borrowed Air’ interweaves etching, printmaking and painting – mediums that, within contemporary art, have tended to be saturated by the European canon – to introduce striking portrayals of Andean history that ask who gets to shape collective narratives and why.
Presented in the heart of the gallery, Intrusos en sus tierras (Intruder on Their Lands, 2024) features a series of vivid risographs hung together in a tight, rhombus formation. Inspired by images from state-sanctioned schoolbooks, Martínez Garay’s risographs skilfully subvert national propaganda, undermining the authority of a Western archive which purports to depict Andean history under Spanish rule. In one plum-hued print, we are granted insight into the colonial recasting of history under the guise of documentation: a white hand holding a pencil hovers over an image of Tupac Amaru II, an Indigenous leader who spearheaded the Andean uprising against the Spanish. A sense of unease creeps in: the cartoonish hand appears at odds with the traditional portrait aesthetic of Amaru’s bust, as if the anonymous editor is engaged in a process of simplifying the cultural nuances of Peruvian history, reducing it to a digestible caricature for the audience. Another of the vignettes references the Spanish regime’s systematic silencing of Andean culture by presenting a quena (Andean flute) breaking underneath the weight of a leather shoe – a symbol of urbanity – reminding us of the flawed nature of a historic narrative shaped by destruction.
Nearby in Los Eternos (The Eternal Ones, 2024), three silhouetted heads open their cavernous mouths in a muted choir. Shown in profile, the figures’ acrylic outlines convey a spectral quality: these are ancestral voices speaking from the past in unison. The work alludes to the longstanding Andean tradition of the oral archive, which positions the collective voice as a valuable tool for preserving Indigenous knowledge and memory. Los Eternos’s authority, however, is defined not by these figures’ words of wisdom, which the artist leaves unarticulated, but by their purposeful silence. Martínez Garay grants her voiceless figures agency by disavowing any form of translation to a Eurocentric audience.
Despite the rebellious tone of the show, Martínez Garay maintains a realistic perspective on the deep-rooted impact of Spanish belief systems on her community. Catholicism, which was introduced to the Andes in the 16th century, was and remains a prevalent influence in the region, with religious connotations weaving throughout the works in ‘Borrowed Air’. A series of small-scale wood panels, brushed over with acrylic to depict various figures in festive dress, offers a more personal insight into Andean culture. Painted from portraits of the artist’s family gatherings, the sitters in Cierren los ojos y recen (Close Your Eyes and Pray) and Su nombre sobre mi nombre (Their Name on My Name, both 2025) don red-and-gold sashes or traditional catholic attire. These figures are rendered headless by the frame, cropped so that only their bodies are in view, their identities overshadowed by the cultural connotations of the clothes they wear. At first glance, their outfits suggest an archaic sensibility but, upon closer inspection, a blue sneaker pokes out from underneath a red uniform, reminding us that the past is not as distant as we might think.
The quietly symbolic scenes presented in ‘Borrowed Air’ are grounded in specificity: Martínez Garay critiques Western archives and addresses religious influences with elegant precision. By electing to depict seemingly everyday objects to highlight the systematic and insidious presence of colonialist legacies, Martínez Garay shows us that the devil truly lies in the details.
Claudia Martínez Garay’s ‘Borrowed Air’ is on view at GRIMM Gallery, London, until 22 February
Main image: Claudia Martínez Garay, Altar para Marina (Altar for Marina) (detail), 2024, sublimated prints on aluminium, 90 × 222 cm. Courtesy: the artist and GRIMM, Amsterdam, New York and London; photograph: Ben Westoby