Como Una Flor

Como Una Flor is a series of oil paintings on wood painted with green undertones and red overlay alluding to my connection to my Mexican roots. As a woman of color born in Chihuahua, Mexico and brought to the United States at only four months old, my art is a way for me to re-establish the bonds to my cultural heritage. Through years of hardships, confusion and denial with my true identity, I found my inspiration through diasporic artists who have also experienced the feeling of displacement and a sense of not knowing where they belong. Furthermore, by interviewing and rendering some of the most important Mexican women in my life, I share and strengthen my connection to them, to my identity as a DREAMER and my role as a female artist of color. While most depicted are blood relatives, others are not; yet each woman has served a strong role in shaping and grounding me to the person I am today.

The flowers in my work serve to illustrate the relationship and cultural ties each of these women have directly with nature. Flowers have held an important place in Mexican culture and art through medicine, as well as decoration of altars, ofrendas, murals, pottery and embroidery. By showcasing a decorative arrangement of flowers at the base of these women, I embrace a theme constantly used throughout my history and traditions. Through symbolic, cultural and personal meaning embedded in the various flowers, I represent characteristics of these women’s personal narratives.

In my paintings, I empower these women by revealing their beauty and resilience. By capturing aspects that portray their strengths, such as motherhood or wisdom in aging, these portraits show a glimpse of who they are, as they are, despite any imperfection. These women’s true essence is captured in this moment of time, as their characters and personal journeys in their life intersect with mine. I created this mural to celebrate these women and honor them as they have taught me new beauty conventions, gender roles and have helped me deconstruct societal expectations and the ideals of beauty I grew up with. It is because of them that I am able to defy the notions given to people like us and show that women of color can surpass those expectations. 

I believe women share a strong connection in the beauty and resilience found in nature, and both follow the continuums of the life cycle. Cada etapa de una flor, al igual que la de una mujer tiene una belleza inmensa.[1] Not everything in nature lasts, yet we can admire and appreciate the process in which things become, grow, live, and pass on. The nature of life in itself is a beautiful concept, which I have begun to capture through these beautifully strong women.                             

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1. Every stage of a flower, like that of a woman, has an immense beauty

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