The Feminist Texican

Okay, so I know this is all late and that the V to the 10th events were last week and everyone is over all the Vagina Monologues talk and the fact that Jane Fonda said “cunt” on live TV (oh, the horror.), but I wanted to post some of this Virgen de Guadalupe art as a belated Chicana homage to Vagina Power.  I first came across it while I was working on my MA thesis last year, and ever since then I’ve wanted to show it off to the world.  So here goes.

We’re all familiar with the iconic Virgen de Guadalupe imagery, right?

“Goddess” by Alfred J. Quiroz: “As a teenager I was perusing a sex education book and there was a full-page image of a medically anatomic vagina. The first thought that entered my mind was that it looked like the Virgen de Guadalupe…My composition is one of a stereo-optical illusion, the Virgen image painted in vaginal colors whilst a vagina is painted in the colors of the Virgen. They superimpose each if one stares at it stereo-optically. The background is the image of Coatlicue, the mother of the Aztec gods, a goddess on her side as a disposed icon and the new “Goddess,” La Virgen.”  (FYI: that’s not a vagina, it’s a labia, but whatever…)

Then of course is the infamous Alma Lopez with her badass feminist Virgen art that takes into account race, gender, sexuality, and transnationalism:

Coyolxauhqui Returns as Our Lady Disguised as La Virgen de Guadalupe to Defend the Rights of Las Chicanas

And finally, let’s take it back to the women’s lib/Chican@ rights movements, when Chicana artists in the 70s were painting La Virgen in empowering positions (click to enlarge):

“Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe” by Yolanda Lopez

“Margaret F. Stewart: Our Lady of Guadalupe” by Yolanda Lopez

“Victoria F. Franco: Our Lady of Guadalupe” by Yolanda Lopez

Pretty cool, huh?