The work of Javier Silva Meinel (Lima, Peru, 1949) has focused on bringing to light the hidden contemporary realities that coexist in the world ‘from the margins’, in contrast to the hegemony of the Western canon. For four decades, the artist has devoted himself to travelling and forging ties with indigenous Peruvian communities, using photography to reflect the interstices between reality and fantasy; physical bodies and their ancestral beliefs.

This tension between the earthly and the spiritual manifests itself in a gaze that dignifies the subjects as archetypes of the ineffable beauty of a genuine and unbreakable humanity. To this end, Silva Meinel explores the myths and knowledge not merely of connection, but of complete belonging to nature. Through square, black-and-white formats, he explores the sensitivity of gazes and the depth of a deafening silence. His compositions refer to the physical and material aspects of reality and to the fact that the exotic dissolves if a common starting point is allowed.

Javier Silva Meinel held his first solo exhibition in Lima in 1978. Since then, his work has been exhibited in various galleries and museums around the world, in both solo and group exhibitions. His photographs have been exhibited in the United States, Venezuela, Brazil, Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands.

His works are also held in major public and private collections, such as the Brooklyn Museum (New York, USA), the Art Institute of Chicago (USA), the Houston Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, USA), the Museum of Photographic Art (San Diego, USA), the Museum of the Americas (Denver, USA), the Museum of Art (New Orleans, USA) and the Lima Art Museum (Lima, Peru), among others.