Liliana Romero Segura

East London Printmakers Award 2020

Liliana Adaluz Romero Segura is a graduate BA in Visual Arts; Graphic Design, of Pontificia Universidad Xaveriana at Bogota/Colombia. She is currently finishing her Masters in Printmaking at the Camberwell University of Arts.

Through the path of her artistic career, she had an intense interest in black-feminist activism and the defence of endangered communities (LGBTQ+, the Refugee community, Violent Domestic communities) as the relation of self-identification. Liliana’s research focuses on the loss of memory built by the continuous simulation and imposition of a systematic white society, erasing a heritage and leaving blank space inside contemporary black individuals. Through different experiences and involvement inside London’s black community, Latin women community and Colombian community, Liliana’s definition of black (black person) evolved into new meanings. Territory, history, class and many other factors construct a flexible and unflexible shape of the word black, but all were winding up into the same conclusion that BLACK is the rebellion against a social system that benefit of inequity.

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Inside the imagery of Liliana’s artwork, there is a constant of the iconography. Text and typography handle an essential part in the composition of the image. Between letter, background, and figure create tensions and filling that give this urgent and robust reaction to the viewer. That does not mean that the message inside this text is not essential, as a bilingual person, Liliana presents posters in both languages. Spanish, her native language and English, the “global” language. 

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Black women’s body is recurrent in Liliana’s artwork and poster designs. Black bodies have repeatedly been attacked, manipulated, exoticise and disowned. The recovery and empowering of this body transform it into a symbol of rebellion, of hope, an opportunity to respond to that loss feeling of unidentified. 

Identification and homage: Her activism is born from her context back in Bogota/Colombia, where racism and xenophobic are considered “evils from another land.” As our eye points directly (and only to) the North American and European “paradise” our country corruption increase by the second, dismissing and silencing Latin people voice. One of the branches of the project goes to portrait Colombia’s social leaders that have lost their lives fighting against a government that has forsaken their people. 

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Her love for printmaking, focusing on screenprinting, leads her to use the posters format utilising references as classic Black Panter Graphic Designer, Emory Douglas to empowering black women as Betyer Saar, Barbara Jones-Hogu or tongue in cheek Kara Walker. For Liliana, posters relate and have a more considerable impact with the public. This format breaks the barrier between what is believe of unsophisticated art or what high-quality art, as the process of printing can be complicated or straightforward. Poster printing has a natural profusion, do to the no need for actual professional space (referring to galleries or museums) but the simplicity and unofficial public visibility that the street offers. Their versatility in various context is carried through history as they have the political importance to promote cries for help, for a fight or for empathy that various activist movement ask to the public. Liliana true-hearted believes in the reproductivity that the print technique carries, and how its element of conversation, can awaken the viewer from the eternal slummer that this systemic racism has kept us.  

Liliana started in her early stages as an entrepreneur in the artistic environment as an Art Director with the project BANG MAGAZINE where she had the first-hand experience about the rigour of art-business. Also, she worked next to the advertisement enterprise, DDB Latina, as a graphic designer producing campaigns to Claro and BBVA. More recently she participated in renowned digital and screenprinting studios in London like Panopus printing and Jealous Gallery, where she worked next to experienced and qualified technicians printmakers/artists and designers. It is worth mentioning her interdisciplinary work with political activists and artists in social projects like Quieto Pelo Tumaco, MAFAPO (Mothers of the Extrajudicially Killed) and foundations like Grupo la Semilla. Her artistic approach includes a variety of exhibitions in Latin America, New York and London, participating in REDIBUJANDO BOGOTA (2017) EMERGENTE (2017), SVA SUMMER COURSE(2017), FASHION SHOW LEZAPATIER (2018), POLVO SOMOS (2018), ART WHO (2018), CASA VALHALLA ART TRAIL (2018), ATKINSON GALLERY MA SHOW (2020), CSM ART TRAIL (2020).

lilophilia@hotmail.com

@lilophilia