This article by the Argentine critic and art historian Marta Traba (1923–1983), who lived in Colombia, clearly reveals the “formalist” discourse she embraced in the latter part of the decade in order to follow the work of young artists. In the case of the second solo exhibition of works by Cecilia Porras (1920–1971) at the El Callejón gallery in Bogotaá in November 1956, Traba identifies the artist’s use of abstraction through her articulation of forms and colors, describing this as “her contribution,” and calling it an improvement over her earlier exhibition in 1955 [see “Una revelación artística, Cecilia Porras”, [An Artistic Revelation, Cecilia Porras] doc. # 1099021].
It should be noted that Cecilia Porras was part of a group of women artists—including Judith Márquez (1925–1994) and Lucy Tejada (b. 1920)—who, in the 1950s were deeply involved in local and international exhibitions and moved in intellectual social circles. They were all professional artists who worked in the field of modern art, exploring purely visual forms of expression. The works that Porras presented at the exhibition in question did not adhere to a strictly Abstract style; instead, as in the case of several of her contemporaries, they were based on the natural world, interpreting it through experimentation with form, with color, with a particular construction and articulation of planes.