Rurru Mipanochia
Size: 90cm x 70cm
Technique: pintura acrílica y marcadores sobre papel Fabriano
Year: 2020

In this work, entitled Malinalxochitl, we can observe several elements that express a dialogue among them which energizes their meaning. The circle representing the moon, behind the face of the main character, indicates a strong relationship between Mesoamerican women and telluric feminine characters with the star. The bats have a strong relationship in keeping with the myth of the creation of the flowers which in turn are linked to the origin of menstruation and which is strongly connected with the underworld, just as Xolotl (diety!) dog connected with the sexual transgressions and with the characters, Psicopompo, and Mictlancihuatl/Mictlantecuhtli (dieties of death), dwellers of the underworld.

Predatory animals such as spiders, centipedes and snakes were associated with Malinalxochitl.

The heavens and the underworld were united and alike and related constantly. The underworld was not a barren place as Catholics imagined and taught; it was rather a place of pleasure.

Among the flowers represented we can see the cempasuchils, flowers commonly used in Mesoamerican rituals and today as offerings on the Day of the Dead, Estramonio, commonly used by the curanderas Mexoamericans in their ancestral medicine with the purpose of healing and Ololiuhqui, that were consumed by Chamanxs Mexicas and Mayas, because of their psychotropic effects in various rituals among other uses.

Malinalxochitl was considered the one who devours hearts, and in the design she holds a sphere with both hands showing and offering it to those present. This represents the teyolia, one of three pale beings, who was believed to reside in the heart, where she was the entity of memory, knowledge and intelligence. If she departed from the body it would cause death.

The two other pale entities are represented each with two small spheres in the superior right side. El tonalli, whose primary dwelling is believed to be the head, travels at night during sleep and leaves the body during coitus.

The ihiyotl, dwells in the liver and leaves the body willingly and unwillingly. People who have knowledge and power over nature are capable of liberating him voluntarily. He is believed to be the center of the soul of sentiments and passions.

Malinalxochitl’s eyes are of different colors in an effort to actuate the dual concept encompassed in the whole cosmoamerican cosmovision, just as the two characters dressed strapped-on. To our thinking besides the feminine and masculine gender, that were never in opposition to one another, there also existed a neutral gender. Just as the presence of many more genders were identified that cannot be understood today by western societies’ colonizers. They are determined that we continue to see the world through their eyes, not accepting another side while imposing and believing that we expect them to do the decolonizing work for us.

My work as a whole is inspired by the few Mesoamerican codices that have survived the cultural extermination during the invasion Abyayla, in the texts and studies of several male and female anthropologist and investigative researchers such as Miriam Lopez Hernandez, Jaime Echeverria, Noemi Quezada, Sylvia Marcos, Patrick Johansson, Guihem Olivier, The Chronicles of Bartolome de las Casas, y Bernadino de Sahagun, (The last two authors should be studied carefully, as they were Spanish Franciscans who often altered what they learned from the Indigenous informants in keeping with their preferences influenced by their Catholic religion). My work is also inspired in art nouveau, symbolism, Japanese carvings, “eroguro”, and the anticolonial theories.