Laura Anderson Barbata, Sandra Bermudez, Marta María Pérez Bravo, Monika Bravo, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Mónica Castillo, Josely Carvalho, Esperanza Cortés, Elba Damast, Annalee Davis, Patricia Villalobos Echeverría, Scherezade García, Marina Gutiérrez, Anaida Hernández, Matilde Marín, Beatriz Mejia-Krumbein, Lydia Negrón, Mari Mater O’Neill, Tatiana Parcero, Belkis Ramírez, Eugenia Vargas, and Kukuli Velarde.

To make a self-portrait is to posit some part of the persona as an identity. It is an assertion of the self, reflecting interests, aspirations, and desires. This exhibition focuses on work in which the artist’s life provides a primary source. Much of it blends daily life, memory, invention, and a perception of some aspect of the persona. In some of the work, the artist is literally depicted, in others she is represented symbolically or metaphorically. Some of the artists work as diarists, others not. The topics are diverse, ranging from universal rites of passage—childhood, coming of age, romance, maternity, motherhood—to those issues often associated with Latin American art—a concern with social and political content and an interest in surrealism and fantasy. For some of the artists, it is the intersection of life with historical events that provide the defining moment.

The notion of identity shaped by association with the mythic abounds and the attributes of the gods provide further insights into the persona. Works include references to Wonder Woman, the Egyptian goddess Mut; the orishas, Shango, Yamaya, Obbataca, and Oshosi; the Hindu goddess Kali; the Aztec goddesses Tonatzin and Coatlicue; and the Christian Virgin of Guadalupe and the Virgin Mary. Others in the exhibition work in an attempt to counter the mythic presence of Frieda Kahlo whose work has come to define contemporary Latin American self-portraiture.

Transcultural dislocation is a theme in much of the work—most of the artists have lived in more than one country and culture. The notion of a “hybrid identity,” in which cultures merge, provides a subtext in many of the artists’ work. There is a common agreement that home is not a fixed locale but carried within.