The Peruvian artist represents contemporary conceptual artwork with prominence throughout Latin America. She has explored different approaches through her art, including painting alongside installations and cybernetic systems. Her artistic practice explores personal identity and women's societal position and power systems.
In Chicago, she was introduced to the latest concepts of art — pop art, minimalism, and cybernetics, which significantly influenced her later work.
As an artist,
Teresa Burga operated between artistic disciplines, scientific approaches, and technological explorations. Before anyone else in Latin America's art scene, she refused to continue with traditional painting techniques and embraced unusual forms of creative expression.
The Arte Nuevo art group welcomed Burga in the 1960s to push beyond traditional artistic limits through pop art abstraction and new media applications. Mass culture symbolism and consumerism research with bright colors formed the main focus of her artistic production during that time.
During the 1970s, Teresa commenced her work by mixing art and scientific elements. Using technology, she developed interactive installations to study the interaction between individuals and human social constructs.
Burga dedicated herself to the project "Perfil de la Mujer Peruana" (Profile of the Peruvian Woman, 1980), where she studied Peruvian women by reviewing their socioeconomic standing and educational and financial insights. Through this innovative work, she used statistics to expose social inequalities as an artistic medium.
From the end of the 1980s until her passing, Burga stopped creating art and spent many years in obscurity throughout Peru. In the 2000s, art historians and curators rediscovered her contributions to the contemporary art scene.
The contemporary art world displays her creations throughout major museums, including the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid), the Tate Modern (London), and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, New York).