Translations:Marta María Pérez/6/en

In the mid-eighties, as a young artist, she presented one of her most powerful works in the series “Para concebir” (To Conceive), recognized for renewing the language of photography in Latin America. In this period of her career, motherhood became the vehicle for her visual work, as she experienced the intersection of the transformations of her body and the discourses and norms that prescribe maternal performance in Cuban culture.

The photographs in the series show the influence of Cuban conceptual artist Ana Mendieta and American photographer Cindy Sherman. As a young mother in 1987, she continued to explore this theme with the series “Recuerdos de nuestro bebé” (Memories of Our Baby).

In the following decade, the artist's career moved away from the autobiographical theme of motherhood towards the investigation of the feeling of loneliness as a human experience. This is expressed in works such as “Lo que allí se siente” (What Is Felt There) and “Todo lo tengo, todo me falta” (I’ve Got It All, I Lack It All). In this stage, she also dedicated works to representations of the Orishas, divinities of the Yoruba religion transported from Africa to Cuba and Brazil especially through the diasporic migration that occurred during the European occupation of the Americas. Some of these deities are the subject of her photographs: Eleggua, Yemayá, Ochún.

From 2000 onwards, Pérez produced video work consistently alongside her photographic work.