For the Chicana feminist theorist Gloria Anzaldúa, rigidity is a sure path to demise. In her manifesto, Borderlands/La Frontera, Anzaldúa presents what she calls a new mestiza consciousness, which advocates for ambiguity and moves “toward a more whole perspective, one that includes rather than excludes.”
Groundbreaking when it was published in 1987, this theory pushed queer, feminist, and cultural scholars to consider how identity is both fluid and informed by several overlapping factors. It also helped to lay the groundwork for branches of study like ecofeminism, which connects the subjugation of women to the subjugation of nature.
Mexican artist Hilda Palafox draws on these lines of inquiry in her exhibition De Tierra y Susurros, or Of Soil and Whispers. Comprised of oil paintings on linen and carved cantera reliefs, this body of work considers a spiritual connection between women and nature and the possibilities for attuning ourselves to our environment once again. “For me, the point where two lines meet lies precisely there: in the conscious decision to pause, to listen, and to pay closer attention,” the artist says in a statement.
Often capturing a moment of respite, several of Palafox’s paintings depict tender acts of care. “Origen,” for example, features two topless figures in the fetal position, cradling a sapling, while “Presagio” is similarly delicate as small yellow butterflies emerge between two women. One of the fluttering insects even lands on a fraying chain-link fence in the foreground, a metaphor for the rigid systems, both internal and external, that Anzaldúa opposed.
Palafox has long been interested in how our bodies inform our experiences, and earlier works typically played with scale and proportion to explore such connections. In De Tierra y Susurros, the artist extends these metaphors to more directly incorporate ecology through a rich palette of Earth tones and vast landscapes that highlight the relationship between humanity and nature. A series of reliefs titled Portrals further entrenches Palafox’s attraction to the in between, as fragments of figures and flora intertwine to form ambiguous intersections.
De Tierra y Susurros is on view through February 21 at Sean Kelly, New York. Keep up with Palafox on Instagram.
