MALINCHE QUEEN

PAINTING

Ink, acrylic and oil on paper.

Painted surface 29.5 x 24 cm (11.61 x 9.45 in) in a format of 50 x 32.5 cm (19.69 x 12.80 in).

Year of realization 2017

Signed.

Artwork made for Malinche's musical.

This work corresponds to a commission made for the musical Malinche, initially the actress Penelope Cruz would act in the opening of the musical. In this work we see the actress playing the character of Malinche.

A mysterious and antagonistic character, she is presented in this homonymous play by Romulo Royo. She is a Nahua woman from the southern region of the current Mexican state of Veracruz who played an important role in the Spanish conquest of the Mexica empire. Interpreter, advisor, intermediary and concubine of Hernán Cortés, she has been considered by many as the union between two worlds and by many others as the devil traitor to her origin.

This work is charged with emotion, with feelings, through an expression of recollection, with a crestfallen expression on her face, which speaks of a narrative that has been repeated throughout history: the confrontation between the known and the new, denying the past in order to move towards a new future, the supreme expression of nostalgia, sorrow and even fear.

The character, portrayed in profile, is based in its composition on the artist's own work Goddesses of Nibiru. The precious details are found in the delicate attributes of his face, as well as in the feather headdress he wears, which we can relate to those garments and jewelry so characteristic of the Mexica culture.