SHAPESHIFTER DRAWINGS AFTER THE ENIGMA POEMS OF SOR JUANA INES DE LA CRUZ

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​ Irenic Projects, Pasadena
March - July 2020
Curated by Mike Hernandez

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​​​​Shapeshifters is a set of eight large shellac ink drawings on handmade Kozo Washi paper. They were created during a residency at the Ucross Foundation, Wyoming, in November 2019. 

 Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695) wrote twenty satirical ‘Enigma’ poems in response to indifference to the suffering of the poor among the elite of colonial New Spain.

She died while ministering to the sick on the streets of Mexico City during an outbreak of cholera.

Sor Juana shears dread, wonder, nature, faith and passion into terse rhyme. Contentious, paradoxical and perverse, her writing grapples with the tension between language and community.

She presides over this strange new world where fear of contagion gives agency to non-truths.

Like the Enigmas, the Shapeshifter drawings aim to embody ‘the delight’ and the ‘hellish plight’ in their shimmering, seductive and snaring traps.

Stalina Emmanuelle Villarreal (2015), translates: 
​¿Cuál puede ser el contento
que con hipócrita acción
por sendas de recreación
va caminando al tormento?
~
What can be the delight
that with hypocritical gesture
along pathways of leisure
goes trekking toward a hellish plight?

​Link to full text PDF from Ugly Duckling Press

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