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Artist's Statement With my art I try to negotiate the complex mix of the personal, the traditional and the contemporary that make me who I am. My personal experiences resonate in the type of narratives that slowly evolve into a complete image. All my pieces present women interacting with animals, in a juxtaposition that depicts my feelings towards nature and culture. In the natural world the strongest hunts the weaker which in turn hunts the weakest in a strict predator/prey hierarchy. It is a cruel world but one that supports an ongoing balance. The young girls in my work are portrayed at the moment of loss of innocence as they understand that in this world something or someone must die to give way to other life. They come to terms with their natural self. In other works we meet women that have come to the realization that the life-death cycle that is balanced within nature, is at risk when culture is involved. These women have understood that the natural model of "the survival of the fittest" has jeopardized balance in the cultural world by validating as "natural" episodes of injustice such as men overpowering women or the "have" ruling over the "have nots". These women are searching for a new self to harmoniously encompass the natural and the cultural: the ecological self. The old self would be reinvented beyond individual concerns to include the environment. This evolutionary stage of our consciousness requires a more closely integrated relationship between the masculine and the feminine components of the psyche. In the work The Toy, a woman is seen returning to the natural world by impersonating a deer and a leopard. Able to play the roles of the hunter and the hunted, she now possesses the traditional qualities of men: strength and assertiveness, and of women: care and compassion. My work is influenced by artists of the Latin American Magic Realist movement who explore reality through fantastical transformations and by Mexican popular art which is a blend of traditions, myths and humor with Baroque, colonial and Catholic roots. I constantly strive for work that has the honesty of hand-made crafts. My women are portrayed in a frontal iconic manner, similar to that of the "retablos" of popular Mexican Catholicism. Popular arts around the world share characteristics such as "over decoration", use of space-flattening pattern or attention to detail that are also present in the crafts traditionally made by women and in my work. I often indulge in pattern as an answer to my personal "horror vacui". With my art I want to attain a deeper understanding and control of my self in the environment. I am in a constant search for my ecological-self. Updated 8/31/2001 by WebMaster