Coatlicue is the earth goddess of life and death and mother of the gods. She is depicted as having a serpent for a head, a necklace of human skulls and hearts, a skirt made of serpents, and taloned feet. In Anzalduan theory, the male dominated Azteca-Mexica culture was responsible for giving her her monstrous attributes and her story also marks the beginning of a shift from a woman-centered worldview to that of a male-centered one. After the Spanish invasion, colonialism further demonized this sacred figure, describing her as satanic. As I performed Elisa’s limpia, I received serpent energy and immediately felt connected to Coatlicue. I worked on clearing unhealthy patriarchal energies that Elisa was carrying due to a society that privileges men and exploits women, including low wages and domestic obligations. Elisa is my cousin. She is a single mother who has made her living as a domestic worker as well as a worker at a cremeria, or dairy products store. In this portrait Elisa transforms into a contemporary reincarnation of Coatlicue, a powerful earth god/dess who represents the balanced dualities of male/female and pain/transformation. Tapping into Coatlicue’s serpent mouth as medicine – understood by the Olmecs as the most sacred place on earth, a refuge – provides Elisa with inner strength and motherly protection.

Luis Sahagun

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Luis Sahagun is an artist whose practice confronts the palpable inescapability of race and transforms art into an act of cultural and spiritual reclamation. As the grandson of a Curandera, and himself a practitioner of Curanderismo, when Luis makes art, he conjures indigenous spiritualities to embody the aesthetics of personal histories, cultural resistance, and colonial disruption.