Bordando el manto terrestre: images and writings by Remedios Varo

Abstract

The work of Remedios Varo, especially her painting Bordando el manto terrestre (1961), presents itself as a productive way to deepen the reflection that I present in this article. The idea is the following: by admitting, as proposed by the Brazilian theorist Luiz Costa Lima, the presence of a control of the imaginary in the West, especially in Latin America, and aiming at reflecting upon it from the perspective of literature and cultural relations in the Latin American context, we find certain tópos that appear as deviations and resistance to this control. I refer to the works of certain foreign women who developed their work in Mexico and who somehow establish a dialogue with surrealism, such as Leonora Carrington, Kati Horna and Remedios Varo, author of the painting that we will discuss in this paper.