Tereza Icaza

Teresa Icaza
(Panama, October 12, 1940 – ibid., November 6, 2010) was a Panamanian visual artist.
Teresa Icaza had her first encounter with painting during her teenage years, when she took some classes, although her artistic training was mostly self-taught.
In the 1960s, she began her career and studied under Panamanian artists Antonio Alvarado and Mario Calvit, who became her friends and mentors. During this time, the painter developed her ideas around abstraction and various techniques for creating textures and collages—key elements of her artistic style.
She is considered a pioneer of contemporary art in Panama, at a time when, especially for women, it was not easy to make a living from painting. She is also recognized as a forerunner in the use of collage and mixed media techniques in the country.
Her vast body of work went through various stylistic phases. Icaza focused primarily on components such as color, abstract values, and the representation of light.
Over time, her color palette evolved gradually—from landscapes in somber tones and nocturnal settings to works with warmer hues and semi-figurative solutions.
Tania Iglesias remarked: “Icaza’s landscapes—even when they reference recognizable signs—have been filtered through the intimate and secret perception of this artist, whose work still reveals the linguistic memory of a creator trained in the realms of abstraction.”
Art critic Mónica Kupfer said of her work: “Both the outer-space themes of her early years and the later voluptuous forests with luminous horizons served as a vehicle for expressing interior realities and the illusion of a distant, ideal world.”
During one of her artistic periods, the artist drew inspiration from cosmic elements, celestial bodies, and satellites, naming that collection Martian Chronicles as a direct reference to Ray Bradbury’s work. Before reaching her well-known trees, she had gone through a fully abstract phase. However, her trees did not resemble real ones—she favored trunks in shades of blue, orange, and red.
Exhibitions
In 1973, at the Panamanian Institute of Art, she held her first solo exhibition, composed of 22 pieces in a lyrical abstract style.
Over five decades of work, she presented more than forty solo exhibitions and participated in over sixty group shows, both in Panama and internationally.
Her pieces are part of major collections such as the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, D.C., and in Panama at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Bank of Paris, the Banco Exterior, and the National Institute of Culture, among others.
In 2018, an exhibition titled “Teresa Icaza: From Abstraction to Landscape” was held in San Francisco, showcasing a selection of 42 works produced between 1989 and 2008.
Awards and Recognition
Teresa Icaza was honored with several distinctions throughout her career, including an Honorable Mention in the 1975 Xerox Competition and Second Prize in the 1976 Young Panamanian Visual Arts Competition.
She was awarded First Honorable Mention in the First National Painting Contest of Panama organized by the National Institute of Culture (INAC) in 1981. She also received top honors, such as First Prize in INAC’s National Painting Contest in 1985, and in the Panama Refinery National Competition in 1987.
At the time of her death from a heart attack at age 70, the artist left five or six unfinished paintings.