Lodhi awash in Andean colours with South American artist Jumu’s mural

Latin American markets are a vibrant showcase of colour — of fruits, ponchos, statues, and flowers. In Berlin-based, Latin American artist Jumu’s (Jurena Muñoz Lagunas) canvases on view as part of ‘In Memory of a Totem’, her first solo exhibition in India at Delhi’s Gallery XXL, these colours come alive.

Artist Jumu's first solo in Delhi unfolds as a vivid journey through memory

“Memory becomes a living totem”, says the artist with Andean roots. For her, memory becomes a way of carrying forward what risks being erased. She recalls how her grandfather was prevented from learning and speaking Quechua, the language of the South American Indians of Andes. “He forgot the language, and that makes me sad. It could have passed to me — and I could have passed on.”

Travel as archive

Raised in Germany, Jumu often travels to Latin America — Peru, Chile, and Mexico. She calls herself a sailor, “watching different cultures and beautiful countries” — at home everywhere, and nowhere. Her paintings capture this in-between state, built from impressions gathered during travel: conversations in markets, myths retold by locals, fragments of landscapes and rituals. “I’m like a sponge,” says Jumu. “I walk a lot. I talk with local people. I’ll take them with me.”

She began drawing as a child, sketching monsters inspired by the bedtime stories her father told her. She later studied design, focusing primarily on costume design to story-tell. Alongside painting and muralism, she performs stories from the Andes “that risk being forgotten” across different countries. Her murals span Germany, Rwanda, Mexico, the Netherlands, Albania and Georgia — and one of them, titled ‘Dilate All Art Spaces’, is now on view at Delhi’s Lodhi Art District.

The women of Andes

Her works primarily feature women in bustling markets. Her canvases erupt with red against green, blue against orange—bold contrasts arranged in maximalist harmony.

In one canvas titled ‘Al Aire Libre’, she paints two women: one in a forest-green top and the other in a striped blouse of blues, pinks, greens, and white with a red hem. Flowers adorn their ears as they sit amidst a mound of fruits rendered in yellows, oranges, blues, and reds. In ‘Mercado San Blas–Cuzco’, two women sit against a yellow-toned canvas. Brown-hued, their braided hair is decorated with yellow and blue flowers above their ears as they sit surrounded by papayas and star-shaped carambolas.

Markets, she says, are central to their life. “Most people that are selling there are women,” she recalls. “In the markets, they don’t just sell products to each other — they exchange, they support each other. It was a very strong symbol to see these women connecting, being strong, and showing their culture.”

A muralist who works in public spaces, she often found herself the only woman on site. Sometimes she was mistaken for an assistant. “To be loud, to be stronger — it was a resistance, for all the women who can paint on the street. That was my punk idea, when I began 10 years ago,” she says.

Despite living between cultures, her Andean heritage pulsates through her work. Drawn from Andean cosmology, Owls, pumas, serpents and birds are constant motifs as are the condor, puma and serpent, all three forming a sacred triumvirate. The serpent represents the past and the underworld; the puma, the earthly present and humanity; and the condor, the upper world — the divine realm connected to the sun.

A portal home

Jumu’s work has also become a solace for the diaspora in Europe, where she frequently exhibits. She paints bottles of familiar drinks, fabrics, and symbols — small visual cues that allow diasporic viewers to feel recognised.

At an earlier exhibition, a visitor told her the space felt like a portal back home to Colombia. “I don’t remember where she was coming from, but she felt so at home. They feel connected. Even Cholita women — they are not painted so much. They felt seen,” recalls Jumu.

“This was beautiful for me because I thought — this is my memory, but in the end it’s all our memories.”

On view till March 14 at Gallery XXL, Defence Colony, 11:30 am to 7 pm

This article is written by Adithi Reena Ajith

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