March 8 @ 7:00 pm – April 25 @ 5:00 pm
Galería de la Raza presents: From Fertile Lands Birthing Women Made of Flowers. This duo exhibition premieres a nine month individual body of work by Paola de la Calle and Sarai Montes as part of Galería’s 2024 ReGen Artist Fund grantees.
De la Calle explores personal memory in conversations with queer elders Ester Hernández and Olga Talamante in her body of work Entre Nosotras. Recollecting memories through an oral history approach and observation of personal objects, De la Calle dives into the personal journey these women have lived while active and in the center of cultural movements. In addition, De la Calle researched academic archives which offered a historical perspective of the roles that Hernández and Talamante have taken to heart, that of a visual artist and political activist respectively. This body of work juxtaposes their portraits with personal belongings, offering an intimate perspective of who they are as individuals in their daily lives.
In her body of work, Corazón de la Revolución, Montes pays tribute to seven revolutionary women: Fatima Bernawi, Pua Case, Melanie Cervantes, Comandanta Esther, María Sabina Magdalena García, Ericka Huggins, and Marsha P. Johnson. With Montes’ intentional use of the color brown, we think of artist Linda Vallejo’s work where embracing brown is an act of resistance that challenges whiteness. Yet, in Montes’ work she celebrates women of color and pays homage to their legacy as liberation leaders. Montes approaches this body of work intersectionally, highlighting women from various social and liberation movements such as land rematriation, indigenous sovereignty, civil rights, trans rights, and cultural preservation.
Portraiture has historically been exclusive to the white elite as a way to cement historical accomplishment and importance, yet in this exhibition, we see their use of portraiture as an act of resistance. Above all, De la Calle and Montes give these women their flowers and creates more encompassing portraits that expands our herstories and roots them into cultural memory.
In their work, De la Calle and Montes gift us the act of reflection of our not so distant past. Furthermore, De la Calle holds a mirror asking us to meditate on the continuous path towards liberation. What will we bequeath to the next generation? As women we embody liberation everyday and must remain grounded in an understanding of where we come from, and honor our motherlands.
De la Calle’s poem affirms:
We did not come from
Nothing
We are from trees
Rooted in ancient soil
Growing platanos
The color of gold
From giant mountains
A lush green
From angry
Mountain mudslides
And devils arriving
By sea
From fertile lands
Birthing
Women
Made
Of
Flowers
