Untitled (Guanaroca [First Woman])

Similar to the strategies of many feminist artists working at the time, Mendieta placed the female form at the center of her production, where it was often imbued with sacred connotations. Primordial female figures were the subject of Mendieta’s Rupestrian Sculptures series created in Jaruco in 1981 on a return visit to Cuba. As evidenced in Guanaroca (First Woman), Mendieta capitalized on the natural shapes of limestone rock formations in her carvings of rotund fertility figures named after goddesses from the Caribbean Taíno culture, which she identified as part of her own ancestral heritage.