Liliana Navarro

There were a lot of interesting artists that folks from class presented on, but the one artist that I really enjoyed and resonated with was artist Liliana Navarro. I had seen her Brown Warrior piece before on social media as well as Cuco's album cover, but I had not seen other works done by her. I took it upon myself to look her up and I found her portfolio website. From what I saw on there, her main focus is portraiture. This depiction of brown bodies and faces in a positive, evocative way is seemingly very intentional. I really enjoy Liliana Navarro’s use of colors in her portraits because they seem to be a nod to the personality of those who are being depicted. Her use of bright colors also makes me feel happy. Her choices of poses for the portraits are interesting and make me think about why she may have chosen those certain angles. Within her portraits, she also focuses on the feminine -- the works that she does have of men have touches of femininity. I appreciate her push for the representation of visibly brown people and positioning them as almost divine-like. I attached a picture of one of her pieces titled Divine Femininity because Navarro positioned herself as a Virgen de Guadalupe, a symbol and an icon that we have seen many other Chicana artists like Yolanda Lopez, Ester Hernandez, and our very own professor, Alma Lopez Gaspar de Alba, depict in varying ways. The Virgen still remains a popularly depicted figure within the Chicanx art community today.