Artist Profile: We introduce you Isabel Bongue

Rolando Rubalcava

“I love playing with the human figure, dark humor, and fantasy in a search for dreamy, delusional abstract meaning”

Qué Pasa's Autumn 2020 cover

Our cover art was done by Isabel Bongue. Her print is an homage to René Margritte’s Son of Man, and the moment we saw it, we knew we wanted it on our cover. We are working on this magazine from our desks at home, typing, and stringing together sentences, but it took a Surrealist to make us stop and ask how we are feeling. Our souls are splashes of paint, with just as many dark and foreboding colors as there are bright and hopeful. We see this image with eyes that are tired, and glasses fogged by wearing masks all day. A part of us wants to return normalcy, yet when looking at this image, we are reminded of normal’s absurdity. Returning to normal is not the dream; the dream is looking back and thinking what was normal was acceptable. Why should we want to continue to perpetuate racial injustice or return to increasing our CO2 levels? Instead, we want to laugh, to feel, to hug someone again. That is what it feels like to see Bongue’s work during a pandemic.

Isabel Bongue is an Ohio Staet student working on her Masters in Fine Arts, after working as a muralist in Cali, Columbia. Some of her entries on her online portfolio include printmaking, murals, and some art gallery installments. The Street Art section includes her murals, with images of neighborhood kids aiding in the painting process. Some of them show rows of children, happy and smiling, as they paint images of inspiring bodies and scenes of nature. Under Illustrations, you’ll see drawings that reflect her style of the fantastical and corporeal, ranging from portraits to anthropomorphized creatures. One of my favorites is a colored illustration of a tree that has been cut down, showcasing the skeleton of a past life inside, reminding us of the life narratives in all living things.

The story of the cover image is one that starts back in Cali. The print was made in an imprenta (print shop) called

Isabel Bongue in her mural

La Linterna on the verge of closing down. Soon, the business was saved by local artists who moved its emphasis to providing an art space for local artists. After several art residencies and promoting the imprenta as a space where art is happening, it is now one of the most successful art shops in all of Columbia. Like this imprenta, their success is a reminder that no matter how distant we are or the state of the economy, there will always be a demand for art. Bongue’s image includes Margritte’s famous question, “¿Qué está oculto por lo que vemos?”, asking what is hiding from what we see? Maybe what is hidden, when we seek art during a time of crisis, is just that: artwork waiting to be discovered. We graciously share her artwork in hopes that our readers can all see what is hidden from us.

To see more of Isabel Bongue’s work, visit her website (https://isabelbongue.com/work) or keep up with her latest works by following her Instagram (@la.mona.isa). To learn more about La Linterna, check out an article from the blog The Cali Adventurer here: https://caliadventurer. com/la-linterna.