Zapatista masks and lingerie: Latina artist explores women’s shame in Mission District art exhibition

Wearing a black ski mask and decorative black bra, a woman is framed by a “Death Altar” of flowers and candles.

The chiaroscuro painting, which represents the death of women’s shame, sits at the entrance of painter Isis Rodriguez’s new exhibition, “Spiritual Manifestation in the Feminine” at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco.

“A woman’s body is the perfect vehicle or avatar to talk about shame,” Rodriguez said, whose work explores women’s shame, femininity and protest. She is part of MCCLA’s 37th annual “Solo Mujeres” exhibition, which runs until March 24 and features work from seven other Bay Area Latina artists.

Rodriguez’s first solo show since 1997 at Galeria de la Raza, the exhibit is a self-referential series of works in which the artist used herself as the model, drawing on symbols and traditions from Aztec culture, Christian creation stories and contemporary Latinx identity.

Rodriguez’s paintings feature women wearing military uniforms, black lingerie and black balaclavas — the mask worn by Zapatistas, a revolutionary indigenous group in Mexico that protested controversial policies like NAFTA in 1994. “The repetition of the masks,” Rodriguez said, is a “mantra to connect with the problem. A desire to get better and wonder about the future.”

Another piece, “The Seeker,” shows a woman holding a pair of binoculars in a dark jungle surrounded by snakes. She is wearing black lingerie, a black mask, military clothing and high-heeled leather boots. “She’s a warrior ready to fight against stereotypes bestowed on women,” said Martina Ayala, MCCLA’s executive director and “Somos Mujeres” curator. “Zapatista masks and lingerie is their armor. The mask and military suit are signs of protest.”

Rodriguez, who turns 60 this year, was born in Los Angeles to a Puerto Rican mother and Mexican father, who was in the military and stationed in Topeka, Kansas when Rodriguez was four years old.

She studied mythology, philosophy, religion and painting at the University of Kansas. In 1990, Rodriguez was accepted into the San Francisco Art Institute, where she focused on sex positive feminism and art for social responsibility.

“Art is meant to communicate to people,” Rodriguez said.  “Art should always say something. Help communicate. Resonate.”