Women 1939

Curator: What strikes you first about this work, titled “Women,” executed by Carlos Orozco Romero in 1939? It appears to be a watercolor and oil painting. Editor: The starkness of the palette—blacks, whites, and that vibrant coral red—combined with the geometric forms, gives it an almost brutalist feel, despite being on paper. It feels incredibly raw in its materiality. Curator: Yes, raw—that’s interesting. To me, the flattened forms evoke a deep sense of cultural memory. There's a primal echo here, like goddesses rendered in cave paintings but filtered through a modern sensibility influenced by Mexican Muralism. It almost hints at a creation myth, or some primordial drama between feminine forces. Editor: I’m compelled by the tension between its flatness and its implied texture. It appears to be layered. The medium, is it watercolor, oil or a combination of the two? Romero’s labor really makes one consider how this was constructed and how these women might be allegories to something political in that day and age. Curator: Possibly, and yet the abstraction pushes beyond pure allegory. It is more akin to archetype. Those sweeping black and white shapes on one figure suggest a magpie’s plumage, while the hand raised to the brow has the classical gesture of revelation or insight. The red is perhaps an assertive burst of passion amidst a grey reality, so, one has to consider, passion amidst political context? Editor: Well, think about watercolor – its historical use in preparatory sketches. Could this have been a preliminary piece for something grander, something perhaps more propagandistic? The artist may have been struggling to find a new vision? The visible brushstrokes suggest not only intentionality but also perhaps a speed, urgency—materials implying immediacy to creation. Curator: That sense of immediacy contributes to its power. The symbolic distillation doesn't diminish its resonance; it amplifies it. What persists across cultural interpretation is the feminine presence – power rendered vulnerable and visible all at once. It has retained all of that and carries those implications still today. Editor: And seeing that power emerge from layers of paint and gesture reveals the power structure around art production itself—labor, materiality, social consciousness intertwine to make it something really moving. Thanks for sharing that iconographic insight with me, that makes so much sense. Curator: My pleasure. Thank you for elucidating the importance of material and the method of creation to find greater depth to its emotional, social, and historic potency!