Surrealists redefining womanhood

“A Natural Turn” is a group exhibition with the works of four artists living in the Americas: María Berrío (Colombian, b. 1982), Joiri Minaya (Dominican-American, b. 1990), Rosana Paulino (Brazilian, b. 1967), and Kelly Sinnapah Mary (Indo-Guadeloupean, b. 1981). This exhibition will be the first time any of these artists will show their work in a Chicago museum. It is part of the museum’s ongoing Latinx Initiative, which fosters representation and participation in museum exhibitions, collections and public programs.

The works on display –– paintings, works on paper, videos, photographs and installations –– depict fantastical creatures and otherworldly female characters. Using patterned Japanese paper and paint, Berrío makes intricate collages that invariably speak to female strength and the “outsider.” Minaya’s multi-disciplinary work challenges the Western caricatures of tropicality and “tropical” people. Paulino reinscribes the Black female body into the layers of Brazil’s historical narrative, complicating engrained ideas of national identity. Sinnapah Mary’s paintings and sculptures depict diasporic myths with a fairytale-like quality of magical enchantment and cruel brutality.

“Many have come to know surrealism through artworks by men from Western Europe, such as André Breton and Salvador Dalí,” Behar said. “And while these artists desired to revolutionize human experience, they often did so at the expense of women. In contrast, the artists in ‘A Natural Turn’ call into question Western and Eurocentric standards of beauty, femininity and womanhood. They present imaginary journeys through the metamorphoses of bodies and a redefinition of what it means to be human.”