Born in San Fernando, Philippines in 1976, Fatima Ronquillo emigrated as a child to the United States in 1987 where her family settled in San Antonio, Texas. She currently resides and maintains a studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her work is included in prestigious private collections throughout North America and Europe.
Fatima Ronquillo is a self-taught painter whose classically inspired imagery evokes a world of serenity and charm. Her paintings of mysterious personages, often set against pastoral and idyllic landscapes, are accented with an underlying sense of drama and playfulness. These intimate works are painted in the style of European old masters coupled with a magical realism rooted in folk and colonial Latin American traditions.
In her paintings, we find numerous references and a strong connection with European paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries. The poses of the depicted characters, their gazes, the natural elements and landscapes, as well as the colors: all these elements transport us back centuries. The poses of the depicted characters, their gazes, the natural elements and landscapes, as well as the colors: all these elements transport us back centuries. Infused with romanticism, Ronquillo's paintings encapsulate a mysterious story told through symbols and metaphors. The beauty, as well as the fragility of both man and nature, are painted with great mastery and lyrical grace, just as much as love, which in Ronquillo's portrayal is not a perfect love: it is romantic, yet also nostalgic, and can be a source of sadness and suffering. His is a true, real love, composed of both light and shadow. Through the lens of magical realism, the artist illuminates an "other reality" that is a synthesis between the everyday of the real world and the magical dimension of dreams and visionary minds.
Hers is an authentic voice that echoes from an inner world where art history meets with nostalgia and imagined characters from literature, theater, and opera.
