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ARTIST STATEMENT: NEPANTLA, THE SPIRITUAL CENTER FOR WOMEN

 

“The work of the mestiza consciousness is to break down the 

subject-object duality that keeps her a prisoner and to show in the flesh and

 through the images in her work how duality is transcended.”

 

Gloria Anzaldúa

 

In today's lexicon of feminism, there is little conversation about spirituality, since so many of us believe that religion is a patriarchal institution of oppression that needs to be dismantled. But in this polarized world, where we are divided and in the middle of conflict, what are we going to replace it with? I think that it's important that artists create new narratives that are designed to encourage and empower spiritual healing.  

 

The works from "Legends" represent divided “types.” The masked woman is a shadow-type. She is a postmodern deconstruction of myself and a meta* reconstruction of a new mythology to heal from shame. I took the Zapatista mask and placed it over a woman in lingerie to protest shame. There are 4 meta-types, the Seeker, the Captain, the Romantic and the Liberator, who represent different feminine powers that are needed to overcome shame. 

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The lingerie is symbolic of beauty and protection from disease. The darkness represents a time well known for celebrating, conceiving, and dreaming,. The jungle represents a mysterious and a predatory world. Snakes are living relics understood by European religions to be temptation but are embraced in Indigenous beliefs as a cosmic transformation of human life. Domesticated animals, like horses means "sexual freedom", and the white rooster, "pure internal strength." 

 

The masked woman is a mantra that needs to be repeated many times to not only tell the story, but to learn the lesson. It’s a type of practice to manifest the personal change that I want. "Legends" is a new spiritual story that shows thru paintings steps toward personal change and well being.