I am an interdisciplinary artist from Cuba, offering a unique perspective on migration and the traumatic effects of political and cultural displacement on the female body.
With a background in Art History and Fashion Design, I work across performance, video, installations, drawings, textile-based sculptures, and costume design to explore themes of identity, belonging, and cultural memory. As a Cuban immigrant, I created the alter ego Cuquita La Muñeca Cubana to establish a cultural home within the U.S. art scene, where I often feel excluded or underrepresented.
Inspired by cuquitas cubanas—paper doll cutouts from Cuban magazines during my childhood- Cuquita serves to navigate the liminal space between belonging and non-belonging. Through her, I satirize misogynistic and racist stereotypes affecting Latinas in the U.S. while addressing the marginalization of feminist narratives. Having endured Cuba's economic depression known as the "Special Period," I experienced trauma but found refuge within myself, recognizing my body as a space for survival.
My most recent work expands on these themes through textural fiber sculptures, in which I meticulously pull thread by thread from linen fabric and sculpt the emerging textures onto mannequins. This meticulous process reflects the experience of undoing and reconfiguring identity, memory, and belonging. Deconstructing fabric—a material designed to hold and protect—becomes a simultaneous act of erasure and reconstruction, mirroring the fragmented experiences of migration and exile. Time is an essential element in this process. The repetitive, deliberate act of thread-pulling connects to the invisible histories of women’s labor, textile traditions, and resistance, embedding both physical effort and emotional weight into the sculpture. These forms exist in transition, functioning as sculptural objects and performative garments.
As someone who has never fit conventional beauty standards, my work also challenges societal expectations of the female body. Living with Cleidocranial Dysplasia (CCD) has shaped my understanding of visibility, transformation, and self-representation—central themes in my fiber sculptures and performative practice. Pulling threads and reconfiguring material, I reclaim the body as a space of resistance, adaptation, and belonging.
My work is intensely autobiographical. I share experiences of vulnerability, displacement, and otherness while critiquing the erasure of Latina migrant artists in mainstream art systems. Through Cuquita La Muñeca Cubana and my fiber sculptures, I explore the intersection of personal history, collective memory, and political resistance. My art confronts cultural stereotypes and reclaims visibility through the transformative power of survival, labor, and self-definition.