Printmakers

Holly Barnet-Sanchez’s article on Chicana printmakers encompassed the involvement and magnificent artistry of these female artists and their pieces. One specific part of her article that stood out to me most, was when she discussed portraiture and self-portraiture. Instead of going along with societal depictions of themselves, Chicana artists like Ester Hernández and Yolanda M. López created images to reinstate their own opposing perspective on the norm. Sanchez describes how they took the typical idea of a “good” Chicana (stereotypical affiliation with Chicanas and the Virgin Mary) and molded entirely unique works of the iconic figure in order to bluntly state their oppositional views. La Virgen de Guadalupe defendiendo los derehos de Los xicanos was Hernández’s piece and López’s was called The Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe. With these, the two artists changed multiple characteristics of Mary, mainly highlighting the change in objectification placed upon women (135).

     The key word “objectification” is what immediately made me connect this whole description to Diane Gamboa’s Altered State screen-print. Throughout this series, viewers see how Gamboa is turning the tables, where instead, she objectifies men. I found it so fascinating to see this social norm be greatly manipulated by a Chicana artist. Here, role are switched and we see women within the portraits as the dominant role(s). In addition, not only are roles switched, but we also see that Gamboa blurs the distinction between the sexes in some of her prints. In other words, men and women are not always distinctly separated, because some figures cannot be obviously seen as a male or female. I find this so interesting because Gamboa grasps this “objectification” notion that we have in society and twists it literally into an altered state in which societal norms are excluded.