Google celebrates works of Ana Mercedes Hoyos, a renowned Colombian artist

Google today dedicates a beautiful artistic doodle to Ana Mercedes Hoyos, a Colombian artist, who was a pioneer in modern art in Colombia.

Ana Mercedes Hoyos was born on September 29, 1942 in Bogota. She was an award-winning painter and sculptor who won over seventeen national and international awards.

Ana Mercedes Hoyos' father was an architectural engineer. He encouraged her daughter the study art history. She completed her primary and secondary schooling at Colegio Marymount in Bogotá, taking private lessons in painting under Luciano Jaramillo. She studied visual arts at the University of the Andes with Jaramillo, as well as Juan Antonio Roda, Marta Traba and Armando Villegas, though she did not complete her studies.

Ana Mercedes Hoyos first explored more minimalistic and abstract styles, which led to her first series Ventanas (Windows). Many consider this collection the turning point of her career, as it won the Colombian National Salon of Artists’ Caracas Prize. She married Jacques Mosseri Hané, an architect, and they spent a month in New York City, exploring exhibits of Pop Art, before returning home to Bogota.

Ana Mercedes Hoyos began exhibiting in 1966. She won the second prize at Bogotá's Museum of Contemporary Art in 1967. The following year she took first place in the Bogotá Museum of Modern Art's "Environmental Spaces" exhibition.

Ana Mercedes Hoyos also produced Pop Art works and by the 1970s, was working in a minimalist style producing abstract works. These led to the creation of her first series, Ventanas (Windows), which many consider her most important works. In 1971, she won the Caracas Prize at the 22nd Salon of National Artists, for paintings 1–10 of the Ventanas collection.

Her artistic journey eventually led her to still-life paintings that examined the multicultural diversity of Colombia. These still-lifes combined exaggerated light with explosive tropical colors to capture the Caribbean’s rich cultures and sceneries. Ana Mercedes Hoyos’ paintings portrayed Afro-Colombian heritage in a magical, mesmerizing way.

Through her still-lifes, she came to appreciate Afro-Colombian heritage, transitioning from an admiration of the beauty of the lush bounty to an appreciation of the cultural contributions and multicultural diversity of the people that populated Colombia. She began researching slavery and its counterpart, the idea of freedom, to come to an understanding of how those historical events shaped and changed Colombia.

US President Bill Clinton invited Mercedes Hoyos to participate in the conference on "Culture and Diplomacy" held at the White House in 2000. That same year, she was given an Honoris Causa master's degree in visual arts from the University of Antioquia of Medellín.

Ana Mercedes Hoyos died on September 5, 2014, in Bogota at the age of 71. In her lifetime, she was honored with over 17 national and international awards in recognition of her work.

Her works can be enjoyed at renowned art institutions like the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, the United Nations University in Tokyo, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in D.C., and perhaps most importantly, the Bogotá Museum of Modern Art, where her journey started. Google today honors her with a doodle to celebrate her life, works and contributions to the field of arts.

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