Week 9 (Martha Ramirez- Oropeza)

 

The artist that caught my eye this week was Martha Ramirez Oropeza. Martha Ramirez Oropeza is a muralist and vice director of the Mascarones Theater Group.  One of the main things that caught my eye was that she taught at UCLA. I was intrigued by her mural of what looks like mother earth and corn plants growing out of her. I noticed that mother nature is depicted as an indigenous woman and the plants seem to be corn. This brings to light the connection in which many Latinx people have with nature. Martha Ramirez Oropeza is an artist very in touch with her indigenous side, she's fluent in Nahuatl and teaches various intro classes to Nahautl. Martha Ramirez Oropeza brings to light indigeneity and what it means to be indigenous. When looking at Martha’s Facebook post regarding this mural she captioned it “Mother Earth, Tlazolteotl, regenerating everything and everyone.”. Tlazolteotl is the goddess “of all things good” in Aztec culture. She represents purity and fertility. This can be circled back to the mural, as the goddess is seen to be giving fertility to the crops in the mural. Martha Ramirez Oropeza has created various other murals that depict indigenous elements and show this intersectionality between indigeneity and Latinidad. I really enjoyed reading on Martha’s mural work across borders, as mentioned in her website, she had 20 murals in total in Mexico as well as the United States. I believe that her work across borders really shows the truth behind what being a Hispanic constitutes of, the crossing of borders in our identity. Feeling as if we belong in both places, Mexico and the United States and cannot commit to solely one identity. Overall, Martha Ramirez Oropeza was an artist that I felt like I can relate to on many different aspects and I enjoyed learning more about her as an artist.