Yolanda López’s Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe
This was my first time being introduced to this image. Many things came to mind, including conflicting thoughts about the subject. I was raised Catholic but as I grew older also grew apart from the church. I had spent some of my teen years going to “seminaries para jovenes”, years that had been tough for me as I was trying to figure myself out. There began to feel the need to separate myself from the church in order to learn more about whom I rea am. This made me love some respect for the imagery and the church as an institution. La Virgen lost weight in my life as a individual and thought it represented very rigid expectations pressed on women. This image really made me think of La Virgen from a different perspective. Yolanda is able to show a different aspect of whom this individual could be. In a way it gives La Virgen agency to be whom she wants to be and not whom she’s expected to. It really made me feel curious about the true story of La Virgen, beyond the frozen statue many of us have at home.
Yolanda, with this image, allows the viewer to imagine an alternative reality for La Guadalupana. This along with infinite possibilities for women today.
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