Roldan Pinedo is a Shipibo artist from the community of San Francisco, in the district of Yarinacocha of the central Peruvian Amazon. Born in 1971, his name in Shipibo is Shoyan Shëca, the same name given to his grandfather meaning “restless mouse”. His paintings are steeped in Shipibo mythology and the environment of the Amazon, including the complex richness of its flora and fauna. 

 

Early on in his career, Roldan was invited to Lima by the renowned historian Dr. Pablo Macera as part of a team of painters from different regions of Peru where he, his wife Elena Valera, and other Indigenous artists were provided a context in which to produce paintings of the animals and plants of the jungle, as well as the customs and experiences of his people. They were the first from their community to paint in this manner. Traditional Shipibo painting known as kené are designs incorporated onto fabrics, ceramics, and on the body. These intricate geometric patterns of great complexity are the heritage of their ancestors.

 

Traditionally Shipibo pattern designs come from the sacred healing energies that come from plants and are the codes of the "ikaros," or songs, that express their healing energies experienced by the healers who "see the songs" and "hear the designs" in their visions. Inspired by these traditions, Roldan paints the visions that he has when taking ayahuasca. In this way the plant itself tells him what to paint and how- his paintings represent the spirits and the energy of the jungle that the plant shows him.

 

Roldan sustains himself as an artist by traveling back and forth from the jungle to the Peruvian capitol. He also travels internationally having participated in various group and solo exhibitions throughout North & South America as well as Europe. Hoy Roldán es un reconocido artista Peruano y ha participado en muchas exposiciones internacionales, incluyendo The Green Eye @ Telefónica en Lima, Perú (2000), Ancestral Vision @ Tremaine Gallery, Hotchkiss School en Connecticut, EEUU (2004), El Poder Verde @ Centro Cultural Español en Buenos Aires, Argentina (2009) y @ the Irish Georgian Society en Dublín, Irlanda (2018). In 2019 he participated in the important exhibition “Amazonias” at Matadero in Madrid, España, and “The Invisible Forest” curated by Patsy Craig @ Gallery 46 in London, England, at Bioneers 2019 in the san Francisco Bay Area and at Dharma College in Berkeley, California.