Gaudencia Aquilina Yupari Quispe is an important Tablas de Sarhua [Sarhua wood plank] artist, a pictorial tradition that arose in the Andean community of Sarhua, Ayacucho, in south-central Peru. Tablas de Sarhua are given as housewarming gifts to families in the community. Made of wood planks between 2 and 3 metres tall, made from local native trees, the painted planks are read from bottom to top and tell the family history of those receiving the gift.

Born to farming, Quechua-speaking parents G. Yupari Quispe studied until the sixth grade. From a young age she was confronted by armed forces and the subversive Maoist group, Sendero Luminoso [The Shining Path], escaping two assassination attempts and an attempt to recruit her into their forces. At 16 she married Juan Quispe Michue who introduced her to painting. Together they migrated to Lima. She belonged to the Asociación de Artistas Populares de Sarhua (ADAPS), which her husband co-founded with Primitivo Evanán (1944), Valeriana Vivanco and Bernardino Ramos. She belonged to the first generation of ADAPS’s women painters, dedicated to promoting art from Sarhua.

As part of this group she contributed to the production of major series such as Éxodo / Llaqta Puchukay [Exodus] (1994) which tells the stories of migrations caused by the political violence in Peru during the 1980s and 1990s. Yet the women’s work, being a collective endeavour within the association, was often overshadowed by the prominence of the men.

In 1994 G. Yupari became a significant voice within the Quechua musical group Qori Taqe [Warehouse of Gold] with whom she recorded the records Huayno autóctono (1995), Pukllay Carnaval (1996), Sumay Sunchu (1996), and Huayno andino (2000). With other members of the group, she co-founded SOFRASAREL, a representative association for Sarhuino migrants in Lima.

In the last decade, G. Yupari’s artistic work, which consists of paintings and embroidery based on the traditional designs of Ayacucho, has begun to be recognised. In 2016 curator César Ramos asked her to participate in the exhibition Manos creadoras, manos de mujer [Creative Hands, Women’s Hands] exhibition. That same year, she was invited by the José María Arguedas National School of Folklore to participate in the staging of Sarhua, Tablas de vida [Sarhua, Planks of Life]. In 2018 she was recognised by the Congress of the Republic, awarded by former congresswoman Tania Pariona Tarqui for her contributions to indigenous art and culture.

Together with her daughter Violeta Quispe Yupari, heir to her parents’ art, she has made paintings on gender issues and violence against women. In 2019 Gaudencia and Violeta founded the VIGA Workshop from where they have produced messages in Spanish and Quechua about the role of women and the care they provided during the pandemic through paintings, textiles and masks. At the end of 2020, Gaudencia and Violeta were part of the #LUCHAPERÚ campaign promoted by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers of Peru.