Indigenous Woman is an independent art publication dedicated to the celebration of Mayan Indian heritage, the navigation of contemporary indigeneity, and the ever-evolving self-image. It is a vision, an overture, a provocation.
The word “indigenous” here is used to refer to the native cultures from a particular region, but also as a synonym for the natural and the innate. It signifies a real, authentic, native-born woman. There was a time when I believed there was no such title for me to claim. I was driven to question how identity is formed, expressed, valued, and weighed as a woman, as a transwoman, as a latinx woman, as a woman of indigenous descent, as a femme artist and maker? It is nearly impossible to arrive at any finite answers, but for me, this process of exploration is exquisitely life-affirming.
In working to convey my own fluid identity—an identity that bridges the binaries of gender and ethnicity—I aim in part to subvert cis, white, Western standards of beauty and raise questions about inclusivity, appropriation, and consumerism. From behind long lashes and lacquered lips, I use the fashion magazine’s glossy framework to play with perception. I employ mannequins, advertorials, and indigenous textiles to reassert control over my own image. Mine is a practice of full autonomy—all photography, modeling, styling, makeup, hair, lighting, graphic design, and product design I have executed myself.
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.
Martine Gutierrez, 2018
From the exhibition: Never Done: 100 Years of Women in Politics and Beyond (September 17, 2020 – June 6, 2021)