María Brito

Self Portrait as a Swan, 2001, oil on wood, 29 in x 18 in

(Collection of Jorge E. Gracia)

My work is a means of communication with others. It is the medium through which I explore my personal experience as I engage in a dialogue with the spectator, who, by seeing my work, can identify with its content through the recognition of similar events that have shaped their lives.

My work deals with essential and universal existence as defined by emotions, sensations, knowledge, and perception. The imagery that I use is symbolic of a process of self-discovery, and it is a personal iconographic system developed from my identity as a woman, a mother, an exiled Cuban, a naturalized American, and a Catholic.

Alongside the particular details of my existence, my work is an exploration of the intrinsically universally elements that each aspect of my being represents, these being gender, family, national and ethnic identity, religion, and beyond religion, the unexplained realities that lie beyond life in the certainty of death.