Mujeres Muralistas can be considered both a movement and an archive. Founded by Scarlett Baily, a muralist based in Mexico City, this project aims to increase the visibility of work by women muralists by creating awareness in curators of exhibitions, organizers of art festivals, and the general public of the importance of artwork by women.
This project grew out of Scarlett’s realization that women were being looked over in favor of their male counterparts at festivals, exhibitions, and public projects. In August 2019, Scarlett put out a ‘call to draw’ asking Mexican, Chicana, and foreign artists with murals in Mexico, to sit for her. In the first phase of the project, Scarlett drew 50 portraits of artists who responded to the call and exhibited them at Galería La Óptica. Many more women responded to the call, and Scarlett, took the idea from here to a more ambiticious projection.
Here is a snapshot of the project: introducing ten Mujeres Muralistas whose work is a part of Mexico’s landscape.
- Andre MX
A visual artist whose medium includes paste-ups, stickers and animation, as well as murals. Andre MX’s work takes seriously not only what she will paint, but the surface she paints on: taking into account the texture of the wall, how sunlight will fall on it, as well as emphasizing the openness and uniqueness of muralism as a form of public art.
Imagen: July 4 2019, tomada de @andre_mx.
- Diana Zyanya
Diana’s work throws a spotlight on race in Mexico, for a running theme in her work, and the motive behind it is the recognition and diffusion of afrodescendency, as well as its social struggle. There is also an emphasis on the female form in her work, as it is reimagined with her motive in mind.
Imagen: July 2 2019, Mexico City, Mexico. Tomada de @dianazyanya.
- Patricia Quijano Ferrer
Patricia is a former professor of muralism at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, as well as a muralist herself. She has written critically on muralism, the role women artists have played in the movement, and champions the visibility of women artists. The focus of her work is the quotidian, creating anonymous heroes and sparking conversations around social issues.
Imgaen tomada de @mujeresmuralistas.
- Adry del Rocio
Although not based full time in Mexico, Adry’s murals have left their mark on Mexico City. While muralism offered Adry the permanence that other street art mediums could not, her work takes on an ethereal quality with the use of vibrant colors and folkloric influences.
Imagen tomada de @adrydelrocio.
- Aline Herrera
Atentamenta una Fresa, as Aline is known in the streets, creates a surreal universe in her murals, where fantastical creatures appear in all their bewildering and colorful apparitions.
Imagen tomada de @atentamenteunafresa.
- Cristina Maya
Cristina describes her work as being metaphorical explorations of the emotions that affect her, whether they are negative or positive in charge. Cristina often places the human subjects of her work in a contemplative state among nature, asking the public to pause and to reflect on what her work is trying to affectively transmit.
Imagen tomada de @cristinamaya02
- Ale Poiré
Ale’s work is an homage to nature, cultural identities, and human actions. The tonality of Ale’s color palette has a quality of reminiscence that captures the importance of memory in the inheritance of culture, identity and a relationship with nature that exceeds any living memory.
Imagen tomada de @alepoirev.
- Triana Parera
Through the use of psychedelic colors, and juxtaposing black and white realist line drawings with shockingly vivid block colors, Triana’s work creates a play on reality. Her paintings give us identifiable, sensible, elements, only to put them out of place and amongst a confusion of color.
Imagen tomade de @triana_mx
- Mariana Botello
Mariana’s work is not confined to walls, but to the transformation of public space and how it impacts the community, therefore, some of her work is seen better from a birds’ eye view. Mariana’s primary colors are blue and pink, a reference to her work as part of bluewomenpinkmen, a project that promotes gender equality among men, women, and gender non-conforming persons, of all sexualities, in the hope that people be able to realize their dreams without societal or cultural impediments.
Imagen tomada de @_marianabotello
- Scarlett Baily
No list of women muralists in Mexico can now be complete without mentioning Scarlett Baily. As well as all the work she does to help women muralists gain the recognition, inclusion, and opportunities they deserve, Scarlett continues to create murals herself. Working in a bold, pop-art-like style, Scarlett explores conceptions of belonging and identity when faced with the homogeneity of globalisation, as well as exploring the nuances of her own Mexican-U.S. culture, celebrating multiculturalism and promoting diversity.
Imagen tomada de @scarlettbaily.
- Text and selection by Federica Signorini.
- Edited by Paul Alonso