Irene Carlos was born in Guatemala City in 1955. She specializes in Painting, Textile Art and Photography. Irene began her artistic studies in 1975 at the Massana School in Barcelona, after the 1976 earthquake in Guatemala, she returned to her country of origin and became a volunteer in a rescue team in the indigenous community of San José Poaquil. She did not return to Barcelona and continued her training with the theater director Yaco Gigi, from the Argentine group Once Al Sur. His influence is decisive, since she works in puppet design and everything related to behind-
the-scenes artistic production.
The creative and bohemian environment in her childhood was the spur that leads her to develop her creative path, since she shares with her siblings Ana Carlos, a film director and producer, and her brother Luis Carlos, one of the most renowned Central American sculptors, a love for the visual arts.
She began her work in art, through textile fibers, dabbling in the high smooth technique and her works started to become three-dimensional. For 10 years she has dedicated herself to exhibiting her tapestries in national and international galleries.
It was the teacher Elmar René Rojas, an internationally renowned Guatemalan painter, who took her to investigate the pictorial world, thanks to being part of the "Itzul" group, which is integrated into the workshop of Rojas.
With more than twenty solo exhibitions, Irene follows her artistic passion, adding elements of her spiritual practice into her work. As a Buddhist practitioner, she unites her philosophy of life by capturing her paint on canvas or the fibers on her tapestry, directing her attention to the present moment, as a meditative form of unification between spirit and matter.