El Palacio del Gobernador

El Palacio del Gobernador drawing by Mary Griep
Mixed media: Graphite, colored pencil, ink, collage, and pastel on Stonehenge paper mounted on wood panels -- 5 framed panels -- Overall dimensions: 10’ x 3’

El Palacio del Gobernador

El Palacio del Gobernador -- Uxmal, Mexico --  Mayan
Fourth drawing in the Anastylosis Project
Researched in 1980-1981 and 2004, drawn in 2005

I first visited Uxmal in 1980. The intricate tapestry-like carvings of late Mayan buildings inspired me then to create and show a series of decorative collages in the early 1980s. Two decades later, after returning from a nearly four-year period living and working in Southeast Asia, I was thinking about my next drawing and the El Palacio del Gobernador came to mind again. A research trip to spend more focused time with late Classical Mayan sites opened up the geographic scope of my project. 

The fact that a replica of this temple was built for the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, where it inspired Frank Lloyd Wright to think about the relationship of buildings to land, was further inspiration to make this building a wonderful first Western Hemisphere addition to the Anastylosis Project.

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