FLORA

Photographic series

 motifs from the work PRIMAVERA

Fine art prints, 50 x 70 cm

2015

 

Claudia A. Cruz takes us to the mythological roots of Flora. Her multi-part photo installation is entitled:

" P R I M A V E R A ... and everything she touched turned into a plant”...

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In Roman mythology, Flora is the goddess of flowers, gardens, spring, and beauty. She has been depicted in art in many different ways, a common motif being that of the flower-adorned maiden.

A. Cruz translates the Flora theme into her own visual language. In a series of images, Flora undergoes a gender change, embodied by a male model entwined with artificial flowers. In ancient mythology, gender boundaries are entirely surmountable. Tiresias, priest of Zeus, was transformed into a woman for seven years and then back into a man. Flora, on the other hand, is female, and for centuries artists have used her to celebrate female beauty. Equated with the blossom, she became the idealized nature. The supposed closeness of women to nature is an old stereotype in the gender order. Men, on the other hand, are identified with culture, intellect, and reason. Claudia A. Cruz subverts these gender attributions through the male Flora model and the use of artificial flowers. The contours of naturalness, artificiality, gender identity, and role attributions become blurred in the image; they appear as a performative construct, as a masquerade.

 

Burkhard Oelmann