Spotlight on Placencia BTIA: Lola's Arts
A little background about Lola:
Lola Delgado had a very understanding mother. When she discovered Lola using makeup to paint on
the walls of their home, instead of punishing her, she decided to buy her young daughter some
real art supplies. Soon Lola was using her art as a means to communicate. When she was just
eight years old, her father sold her first work of art - a painting of a bird.
Born in Belize City in 1959, Lola opened her first art gallery in 1992, in the remote Garifuna Village
of Seine Bight on the beautiful Placencia Penninsula in southern Belize. Lola paints in acrylics on fine
canvas, and when she can't get that she'll use boat sail canvas. She also likes using the shells of gourds
(also known here in Belize as calabash) and driftwood.
Lola paints scenes of everyday Belizean life, especially the women and children of her village, in her very
unique faceless style. She's also inspired by the sea, lagoon and jungle around her. In her studio she
will sit and converse with you about the history and culture of the Garifuna and Creole culture of Belize.
Her paintings hang all over the world, from Taiwan to Norway to New York. The entrance to an
art gallery in SoHo has a piece by her to welcome visitors called "Frida
Kahlo on my wall, Orchids
on my table" This features a portrait of Frida Kahlo, one of Lola's inspirations.
Lola is also a writer and illustrator and has published a children’s book entitled "Belizean Kat Tailz".
She has written two books of poetry and one of short stories.
In April Lola will be having a solo art show in Belize City at the House of Culture called "ART & IDIOCY".
The show will feature many new pieces and ideas not seen before, as well as her regular best sellers.
The show will run for the entire month of April. She is also a part of an upcoming anthology of poetry
soon to be published, and is one of eleven featured poets.
She is currently working on a new desktop publication "FOLKLORE FROM BELIZE" which she wrote and
illustrated and which will be available on February 20th. This has paintings that diverge from her usual happy,
colorful works, featuring the evil bird-footed Llorona beckoning beside a running stream, with wild bush
and mountains in the background.
Lola turns 50 on the 19th of February. She says she feels 28 but most days her body contradicts her
and says 60. In books she likes Stephen King , in music Steve Earle, Andy Palacio, Fountains of Wayne,
Ozzy Osbourne and Lenny Kravitz.
Her favorite proverb is “don’t do bad if you can’t do good”.
