Opening Reception: Jainite Silvestre: Divina

For Divina, she found inspiration in the book Tonantzin Guadalupe, by Miguel León Portilla, a crucial study to understand the history of the cult of the Guadalupana. Silvestre mentions that besides religion, this Virgin is at the core of Mexican identities, such as the Chicano culture. “These iconographies are now transcending borders between countries”, she points out and adds [in Mexico] “Not only we have a cult of the Virgin, but also of the mother”. In this exhibition, she aims to depict women as Virgins, as mothers, and as creators.

Women have always been a central theme in her work. In a previous collection, she drew volcanoes as natural containers of female energy. This time she explores a more spiritual side of femininity, touching on the topics of divinity and sacrality, with a special focus on the pre-Hispanic goddess Coatlicue. “I always try to include her. I think she has been denied [sic] in History, because she has been considered as monstrous by some”. Through this series, she reflects on the history of these sacred images. “This is what I’m bringing now; a woman as a Virgin, but not just a Virgin on a pedestal, but a Virgin with the shape of a pre-Hispanic ceramic piece, of an ancient figure”, she says.

She reminds us that in ancient times, goddesses ruled the world: “Nature was a woman. The Sun was a woman”. She explains that her virgins are more like those ancient depictions: “big, imposing, heavy; shapeless, not stylized”, away from the current canons of feminine beauty. “They had big breasts, legs, and hips; because they had to be fertile to give birth to everything and everyone”, she says.