Neo-Indeo, Cakchiquel Calor, p34 from Indigenous Woman

Artist Martine Gutierrez (b. 1989)

Date2018

MediumC-print mounted on Sintra

Dimensions54 × 36 in. (137.2 × 91.4 cm)

ClassificationsPrint

Credit LineJane and Victor Darnell Fund

Object number2021.11

DescriptionEdition of 8

Acquired as part of the 2020/20+Women@NBMAA initiative.

Of Guatemalan and American descent, Martine Gutierrez documents her exploration of heritage, gender fluidity, trans identity, and LGBTQ and Latinx beauty. In 2018, Gutierrez assumed the role of editor, writer, model, designer, ad executive, and photographer to produce Indigenous Woman, a 124-page glossy magazine with fictional advertising and high-fashion spreads in which the artist continually reinvents herself throughout its pages.

As Gutierrez writes in the magazine’s Letter to the Editor, Indigenous Woman is dedicated to “the celebration of Mayan Indian heritage, the navigation of contemporary indigeneity, and the ever-evolving self-image… Indigenous Woman marries the traditional to the contemporary, the native to the post-colonial, and the marginalized to the mainstream in the pursuit of genuine selfhood, revealing cultural inequities along the way. This is a quest for identity. Of my own specifically, yes, but by digging my pretty, painted nails deeply into the dirt of my own image I am also probing the depths for some understanding of identity as a social construction.”

Through the style and construct of the glossy magazine, Gutierrez subverts conventional ideals of beauty to reveal deeply-entrenched attitudes of sexism, racism, and transphobia in society.

The fashion industry often appropriates indigenous culture through its design but rarely credits the source, and some designers even claim credit. Neo-Indeo functions as a commentary on the invisibility of living indigenous craftsmanship and the appropriation that designers often perpetrate. It explores indigenous identity beyond the typical tropes of nostalgia, poverty, and antiquity. “This is how your abuelita might dress, but this is also how her granddaughter is going to dress,” Gutierrez explained.

The artist draws from eclectic media, acting as subject, artist, and muse, documenting her personal metamorphosis into various imagined roles. Her elaborate scenes employ pop culture tropes in order to explore the complexity, fluidity, and nuances of both personal and collective identity in terms of race, gender, class, indigeneity, and culture.

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