Guillermo Tovar Carazo: Painting Costa Rica’s Landscapes and Myths

We, Belinda and Jonathan of MÍRAME Fine Art, have been lucky enough to travel all around Costa Rica, most recently driving the stunning winding road around Lake Arenal to La Fortuna. We experienced low-lying atmospheric clouds swirling around the hills and Arenal Volcano, dense foliage teeming with life, and chatted with some incredible local people who told us stories of their experiences with their environment.

Throughout our journey, we found ourselves continuously reminded of Guillermo Tovar Carazo’s work—a distinctive blend of contemporary realism with esoteric enchantment—translating Costa Rica's landscapes and cultural heritage into a unique artistic language. His paintings reinterpret Costa Rica’s landscapes and reimagine the country's traditions in a contemporary and hugely innovative way.

Tovar Carazo’s oeuvre is characterised by its rich textures, striking colours, and intricate narratives. With a practice closely tied to his Costa Rican identity, his compositions present the fauna, flora, structures, and people of the country, but he also injects its spiritual essence with references to the country's folklore and mythology. The resulting paintings feel recognisable, tangible, but also surreal and dreamlike.

Join us as we further discuss Tovar Carazo’s world—one that reinterprets Costa Rica’s landscapes and traditions, offering an innovative perspective on Latin American art.

New Realities 

Tovar Carazo's work exists in a liminal space. His ability to create hyper-detailed environments populated by surreal figures and otherworldly creatures reveals a unique understanding of technical precision and the ways you can tell stories on canvas. With influences ranging from classical realism to 1980s fantasy films he used to watch as a child, his paintings reflect an engagement with visual culture, reinterpreting familiar motifs in novel and unexpected ways.

Guillermo Tovar Carazo, Portal, Acrylic on canvas

At first glance, his compositions appear closely tied to realism. The meticulous attention to anatomy, lighting, and spatial depth suggests a firm grasp of traditional techniques. At the same time, within this seemingly grounded world, he introduces elements that disrupt conventional logic—a humanoid figure with animalistic features, a landscape that undulates like fabric, or an ordinary object repurposed into a surreal totem.

In "Portal", this shift is starkly present. A dense, green forest by a body of water splits open into an impossible void, a mysterious passage that beckons the viewer into the unknown. Looking at it, we recall the dense rainforest trails we encountered in Arenal this past weekend, the overwhelming sense of nature’s power and the way certain hidden spaces felt uncanny and spiritual.

The Spirit of Costa Rica

Tovar Carazo’s work channels Costa Rica’s landscapes and folklore, offering a unique perspective on the country’s connection to nature and mythology. His paintings reflect the energy of the land, from the shifting rock formations of “Seascape, Pacific”, echoing the restless tides of the Pacific coast, to the luminous “Diamond House by the Lake”, which seems to emerge organically from the rainforest. Having done some exploring of Costa Rica’s landscapes, from rugged shores to misty forests, we see these elements vividly reflected in his work.

Guillermo Tovar Carazo, Seascape (Pacific), Acrylic on canvas

Rather than offering direct representations, Tovar Carazo’s paintings evoke the feeling of Costa Rica—its rich history, its hidden paths, and the folklore entwined into its landscapes. His work consistently combines the past and present, ensuring that ancestral narratives remain visible in contemporary visual culture.

Guillermo Tovar Carazo, Diamond House by the Lake, Acrylic on canvas

By experiencing Costa Rica firsthand in Lake Arenal and La Fortuna this weekend—from the early-morning calls of tropical birds to the contrasts of light and darkness in the dense canopies—we are reminded of our appreciation for the natural and cultural forces that shape Tovar Carazo’s work. He invites us to engage with the stories embedded in the landscape, reflecting personal experience and broader themes of human connection to nature, shifting identities, and historical memory.

Guillermo Tovar Carazo, Duende (Garden Spirit), Acrylic on canvas

The characters within his canvases give us a sense of nostalgia while also gesturing toward the unknown. This play between time and mythology is particularly present in “Duende (Garden Spirit)”, where a fantastical creature—half-human, half-bird—wears an old-fashioned bonnet on its head, which is comprised of the plants and flowers he frequently sees in Guanacaste when he is exploring with this children. Travelling through Costa Rica, it is not difficult to see how the country’s tradition of spirits, legends, and oral histories infuses works like this with an undeniable sense of magic. You wouldn't be overly surprised if you saw one of Tovar Carazo's Duende figures appearing from the forest!

Emotion and Imagination

Guillermo Tovar Carazo, Untitled, Acrylic on canvas

Tovar Carazo plays a crucial role in the Latin American art scene because his work is a unique and alternative look at Costa Rica’s artistic and cultural identity. While the country’s art scene is often represented through stereotypical toucans or sloths in tourist art, Tovar Carazo presents a deeper, more nuanced interpretation of its history and traditions. He challenges conventional representations, reimagining Costa Rica’s traditions and mythology in a contemporary context.

At MÍRAME Fine Art, we are proud to support Costa Rican contemporary artists who celebrate their cultural heritage and who remind us of why we love exploring this country so much. Tovar Carazo contributes significantly to the evolving dialogue of Latin American art and Costa Rica’s contemporary art scene.

Discover more of Guillermo Tovar Carazo’s work at MÍRAME Fine Art where his work celebrates Costa Rica heritage, mythology, and landscapes.

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Contact Belinda Seppings for more information.

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