Yolanda Lopez: Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe,1978

Some of Lopez’s most popular images are part of her Guadalupe series, One of the images in this series that I found most intriguing is titled, Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe, 1978. Each image of Guadalupe series represents a Chicana woman along with some iconography related to La Virgen de Guadalupe. The composition of this particular image depicts Lopez as a runner surrounded by symbols associated La Virgen. In the book, the author points out that in the original image of La Virgen, she is posed with a reserved expression and is surrounded by elements that serve as symbols, “of control and subservience”, and essentially her position and garments prevent her from any movement. The purpose of Lopez using the image of La Virgin was to “destabilize patriarchal and catholic expectations of women” (81). One of the factors that went into creating this image was the lack of Chicana representation. During the 1970’s Chicana women were not actively represented as “exuberant” individuals. That being said, this image utilizes iconography associated with a figure that embodies power and respect and combines it with the image of an ordinary Chicana woman, therefore representing Chicana women as free, expressive and powerful individuals.