One of the most prominent Latin American modernist painters and a seminal figure in the cultural formation of Venezuela’s visual arts, the self-taught Oswaldo Vigas saw himself as a medium: “Our continent is full of dark signs and warnings. Telluric signs, magic, or exorcisms are deep components of our condition… The intention of my painting is to reach them, interpret them, and translate them into new warnings.” Vigas is known for exploring and synthesizing various modernist styles in his pursuit of giving his intangible and mystical subject matter corporal form. He divined new approaches from his travels between Europe and the American continent. Upon encountering the raw power in Jackson Pollack’s atmospheric paintings, Vigas introduced sweeping and dripping black gestural marks into his own work. This 1963 work is particularly emblematic of this period in his artistic production where he combined American informalism with the European expressionism and cubism he had practiced alongside his mentor and friend Picasso as an active member of the Parisian avant-garde scene.