Must See: Beatriz Vasquez’s New Show, “Feminine Bloodlines, Mexican Womanhood: Erasing Submissiveness”

INDYMAVEN.COM 
By Bekah Pollard

In looking through Vasquez’s Instagram, you can see one piece, in particular, that she’ll be showcasing in the exhibit, and showing in public for the last time, “La Virgin Morena”.

Imagine a gallery full of portraits of strong women. Imagine these portraits are huge—at least ten feet by five feet. Imagine these portraits are all precisely made out of delicate cut paper. Indianapolis-based artist Beatriz Vasquez creates just that. Vasquez is a papel picado artist, creating her work using the Mexican folk art tradition of cut paper. Vasquez traveled to Matamonos in 2009 to spark this reinvention and to connect with her family and study Mexican crafts. Here she rediscovered papel picado and decided to dedicate her art practice to the medium. Traditionally, papel picado is done using chisels and mallets to cut layers of colorful tissue paper. Using this technique as her inspiration, Vasquez has made it her own. [More]