Joyce deGuatemala SculptureSunday, February 13, 2000, the world lost a great artist, Joyce deGuatemala, whose sculpture has been exhibited on four continents and throughout the United States. Internationally acclaimed, her work embodied the inherent unity of primitivism and contemporary culture. Her stainless steel and wood constructions expressed a universal desire to communicate with future and past generations.
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Joyce deGuatemala, throughout her life and work, destroyed boundaries traditionally imposed on Latina artists. Her life expressed all the contradictions of her character. She welded her own steel and sawed her own wood to create massive sculpture, dominating space. To all who met her, she was memorable, a rare bird of exotic plumage, a fascinating presence of beauty, strength, and sensuous femininity. She was born in Mexico City, the only child of C. Albert Bush, a Mexican businessman, and Martha, daughter of a prominent Guatemalan family, but deGuatemala maintained a lifetime dedication to championing the underprivileged in every culture. She attended the National Autonomus University of Mexico, University of Wisconsin, Silpakorn University in Thailand, and the University of San Carlos in Guatemala. Determined to utilize every new material and technology in her art, deGuatemala was, also an ardent preservationist and amateur archaeologist dedicated to the ancient culture of the Americas.
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DeGuatemala's work was included in the World Invitational Sculpture Exhibition for the 24th Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea in 1988. In 1975 she received the first prize for Latin American artists at the International Biennial of Sao Paolo, Brazil for her stainless steel sculpture series "Seven Variations on a Circle" and in 1976 was awarded the Order of Miguel Garcial Granados by the government of Guatemala, the country's highest award for visual arts.
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