Knorke Leaf, a.k.a Norka Paz Rodo is a very talented muralist, illustrator, and engraver born in La Paz, Bolivia. With many works scattered around the capitol, she has also painted internationally, with works exhibited in Argentina, Brazil, Spain, and the United States, as well as several other cities in Bolivia. This has allowed her to become one of the most influential figures in the street art scene of her country.
For more than three decades now, Knorke has been hard at work creating, stating that her mother got her painting from the age of two years old. So, between precociousness and practice, Knorke’s career has had a steady trajectory towards becoming an artist. As soon as she graduated high school she enrolled in a course to study plastic arts at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, specializing in engraving. At the same time, she took courses in Biology because she had an interest in nature conservation. Eventually, she realized she was more of an environmental activist than an academic, so she continued on her path to becoming an artist.
Knorke Leaf’s art attempts to break boundaries and her intention is to touch the extraordinary, the joy in life, and to experience the profound through the infinite possibilities that art offers. She possesses strong environmentalist convictions that she expresses through her art. Environmental degradation, threats to indigenous and peasant territories, the destruction of biodiversity, all of these are issues that society should be concerned about and that the media does not always reflect properly, so Norka has taken up the task of expressing it through her murals. The artist also advocates for women’s struggles and is committed to culture and the preservation of ancestral values.
You can follow Knorke Leaf’s work on her Instagram page here: https://www.instagram.com/knorke_leaf/