HERBERT DE PAZ

    In the series “Back to the Roots,” using elements of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican mural painting as references, the artist creates new reinterpretations through the poetic use of hands, which serve as tools for food preparation, spiritual evocation and daily manifestations. The artist seeks out images of local foods and cultural practices that serve as catalysts for memories in the collective imagination.

In these compositions, the hands cradle and present a vital inventory of the territory's biodiversity, unearthing the sensory memory of Kuskatan through native elote corn seeds, the intense fragrance of the loroco flower, and the textures of fresh guavas, tomatoes, and sharp chiltepe chilies. These traditional foods coexist with native elements like pitos blossoms, jocotes, and cashew apples (marañones), alongside the rich green of the local avocado.

However, this returning journey is not frozen in a distant past; it dialogues directly with the bittersweet fractures of contemporary Salvadoran life. The ancestral harvest is placed in sharp, poetic contrast with the modern ironies of the landscape—such as the ubiquitous ritual of drinking Coca-Cola from a plastic bag, the domestic presence of the perico chocoyo parrot, and the cold circulation of the US dollar as the national currency. Bound to this economic reality, coffee also emerges in the work; long celebrated as a cornerstone of national identity and pride, it simultaneously functions as a historical mirror that reveals deep-seated systems of labor exploitation and social inequality. By weaving these deeply local markers together, the series avoids nostalgic purism, offering instead an intimate and layered archaeology of what it means to belong to El Salvador today.