Puerto Rican art

The art of the Puerto Ricans (Spanish: puertorriqueños or boricuas) draws from the various cultural traditions of the indigenous Taino people, as well as the history of the island as the subject of various other nations.

Autoctono (Native) is characterized by local Puerto Rican colors and simple, childlike features, while Contemporary is a broader category reflective of Santos that are made without necessarily having a direct mystical or religious influence.

Over the years, Santos have become a very personal and important tradition in many Puerto Rican households: they are housed in special wooden boxes called nichos where people pray for assistance and protection,[4] and families often pass down collections of Santos (for instance, depictions of the Nativity Scene) for future generations to add new figures and restore old ones.

The Spanish used their masks to frighten lapsed Christians into returning to the church, while tribal Africans used them as protection from the evil spirits they represented.

Though red and black were originally the typical colors for caretas, their palette has expanded to include a wide variety of bright hues and patterns.

"[9] The importance of artists such as Allora & Calzadilla, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Rosado Seijo, and Arnaldo Morales was "their social dimension and the potential for interaction with others.

"[10] For others such as Manuel Acevedo, Javier Cambre, Nayda Collazo-Llorens, and Carlos Rivera Villafañe, it was their multi-media and site-specific installations that expanded on the "nontraditional modes begun in earlier generations, by artists such as Rafael Ferrer and Rafael Montañez Ortiz, and then Antonio Martorell, José Morales, Pepón Osorio,"[11] and Beatriz Santiago Muñoz.