Totte Mannes and Latin America

Latin America is an important source of inspiration for Totte Mannes. She has lived in Colombia and Mexico (and written a book about each country). Her connection to the continent remains close.

Totte's large multi-part paintings about Christopher Columbus (such as La Ruta Triptico) and Latin American writers (Nuevo Mondo Cuartetto) were widely exhibited in Spain and South America in 1992, the quincentenary of the Discovery of America. Totte calls a major part of her output from 1989-98 her 'Columbus Paintings'. This term covers her Mountains Series, Rainforest Series, Sails Series and Stormy Seas Series as well as several figurative paintings and collages.

Totte says: "Columbus is an embarrassing subject for 400 million people on both sides of the Atlantic - it makes the Spanish uneasy and the Latin Americans aggressive. I started my Columbus paintings because such a big part of my life has been intertwined with South America. I have lived there, I even have Latin American grandchildren. But I also wanted exact a tiny revenge on the perceived superiority of the Spanish over the people from their former colonies. The Latin American landscape inspires my imagination: nowhere else can you find such dramatic contrasts in climate and scenery."

Maybe coincidentally, when Totte's second son was born, he was named Kristoffer.

Eero Rautalahti, 2007