Art and Women
January 25, 2020
Mini Post
A female artist I learned about in my previous seminar in contemporary art class was Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons. Maria is Afro-Cuban woman with Chinese, Nigerian and Hispanic roots, identity has always been a main focus of hers in her work. Maria explores issues such as identity, Afro-Cuban domestic labor, and women's issues. Maria stated that through a lot of her work she honors the women in her family, Maria also created art with feminist ideologies since there was not a huge feminist movement in Cuba, Maria kept their issues in light. The mediums of sculptures, paintings, photography, performances are used to represent these issues. Another subject that Maria explored was Santeria which is a religion that is tied to African slaves in Cuba, she says that this was a women's religion since it was primarily practiced by women at that time.
What I enjoy about Maria's work is her idea of exploring identity, she uses her hair in her work to represent herself but her background as well. The idea of her hair being like its own entity and wielding so much power, she uses bright vivid colors in a lot of her work, primarily red, but also colors like blue. She uses traditional objects like sacred beads or pots to represent her background. There's a strong feeling of mysticism, spirituality and power in her work.
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