COMING SOON
COMING SOON
LIO MALCA AND ISAAC MALCA PRESENT: CARLOS JACANAMIJOY AT
LA NAVE SALINAS
July 14 - October 30, 2026
Wednesday to Sunday - 12PM to 8PM
Fundación La Nave Salinas is pleased to present Naturaleza Interior, a major exhibition of paintings by Carlos Jacanamijoy.
Carlos Jacanamijoy’s paintings emerge from a profound relationship with color, nature, memory, and the spiritual world.
Rooted in his Inga heritage and shaped by a singular pictorial language, his work transforms the natural world into an interior landscape: a place where forest, body, memory, and ancestral knowledge coexist.
Through vibrant fields of color and organic forms, Jacanamijoy invites us into a cosmovision in which nature is not something observed from the
outside, but a living world of which we are part.
“Carlos and I met more than twenty years ago, and I have believed in and supported his practice ever since,” says Lio Malca, founder of Fundación La Nave Salinas. “We began imagining an exhibition at La Nave when the foundation first opened. More than a decade later, the stars have finally aligned.”
Jacanamijoy does not paint nature from a distance; he paints from within it. The title Naturaleza Interior describes both an interior landscape and a way of inhabiting the natural world. In Jacanamijoy’s paintings, conventional distinctions between observer and observed begin to dissolve as forms shift between foliage, water, animal life, celestial bodies, and pure color.
“Many artists have painted nature as landscape, subject matter, or object of contemplation,” says Isaac Malca, Director of Fundación La Nave Salinas. “Carlos Jacanamijoy begins from another place: in his work, nature does not appear before us as an object; it contains us. That difference transforms the gaze itself.”
Rather than illustrating Inga culture or reducing his work to a folkloric or ethnographic reading, Jacanamijoy has developed a singular pictorial language that brings ancestral memory into dialogue with the traditions of abstraction and contemporary painting. As the artist himself has noted, his painting emerges from the sensory memory of Putumayo and the intimate experience of the studio: “I remember listening, among lights and shadows, to the cacophony of animals during an overwhelming night in the middle of the jungle.” For Jacanamijoy, the empty canvas appears as a second window, crossed by memories, dreams, and images of the forest where he grew up.
Nacido en 1964 en Santiago, Putumayo, en la región andino-amazónica del suroccidente colombiano, Jacanamijoy pertenece al pueblo indígena Inga. Su padre, Don Antonio Jacanamijoy, fue un muy respetado Taita del pueblo Inga del Valle de Sibundoy, en la región del Putumayo, reconocido por su profundo conocimiento de la medicina tradicional indígena, la etnobotánica y el uso espiritual del yagé, nombre tradicional de la ayahuasca en Colombia.Carlos Jacanamijoy creció inmerso en tradiciones orales, prácticas de sanación y formas de conocimiento ancestral arraigadas en el mundo natural. Desde la infancia mostró una fuerte inclinación hacia la pintura, y siendo joven se trasladó a Bogotá para formarse de manera académica en el arte. Su decisión de convertirse en pintor no supuso una ruptura con su herencia Inga, sino una forma de proyectarla en el ámbito del arte contemporáneo.
Jacanamijoy está representado por Almine Rech. Entre sus exposiciones individuales recientes destacan Olor a tierra en Almine Rech, París, y Ambi Yaku en A Gentil Carioca, São Paulo, ambas en el año 2025. Entre sus exposiciones colectivas recientes figuran Amazonia Açu en Americas Society, Nueva York, y AMAZÔNIA, Créations et futurs autochtones en el Musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac. También participa en Amazônia. Indigenous Worlds, presentada en la Bundeskunsthalle hasta el 9 de agosto de 2026.
Su obra ha sido presentada internacionalmente en instituciones como la Korea Foundation (Seúl), el Norwegian Museum of Cultural History (Oslo), el Museo de Arte Moderno de Toluca y la Smithsonian Institution. Sus pinturas forman parte de colecciones como la del Musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac, el Museo Nacional de Colombia, el National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution) y la colección privada de Ken Griffin.
“I remember listening, among lights and shadows, to the cacophony of animals during an overwhelming night in the middle of the jungle.”
Carlos Jacanamijoy
Opening Naturaleza Interior
