A mustard-yellow painted jaguar crouches on a black-and-white checkered floor. Its body, shaped like a human form, balances on all fours, sharp eyes piercing the room and a grin that’s almost playful, almost feral. Human-like hands press into the tiles. The tail curves upward behind it, suspended mid-motion. At first glance, it reads as animal. Then the details shift. The body carries breasts.
This painting is part of transgender artist Luka Fernandez’s three-piece series titled Genesis Androfelino, on display at Acción Latina as part of the 14-artist group exhibition, sinvergüenza. The art show unapologetically reclaims the term “sinvergüenza” to celebrate people who live outside of prescribed roles.
Fernandez’s piece is a homage to the breasts they once had, and their direct challenge to fixed gender constructions. “I had top surgery, so I don’t have breasts anymore,” Fernandez said. “But I remember what that was like.”
For the first time in their life, the 25-year-old Peruvian-American artist is centering their identity and experience in their work. At 18, Fernandez began hormone therapy as part of their transition. “I didn’t, in the moment, register this fundamental change in who I am,” they said.
But as they grew older, that transformation began to surface in textured, surreal oil paintings that explore masculinity, femininity and the body itself.
Born in San Jose to a Peruvian mother and American father, Fernandez moved to Mexico at age 5 and lived there until 19. After their parents divorced when they were 9, they were primarily raised by their mother. “I feel closer to my mom’s side of the family, and culturally speaking,” they said. Fernandez later spent time in Argentina, where they identified as butch before fully realizing their male identity in the United States.
The 21 artworks in the gallery confront body shaming, misogyny and homophobia without apology. Fernandez, who is a Root Division Fellow, said they once created realistic nude paintings, but the work began to feel surface-level. “I’ve started exploring more of my spirit identity and the decolonization of gender itself,” they said. “When I’m painting, I’m not just painting my literal body. I’m painting or drawing ideas or concepts of bodies that I relate to.”
In the jaguar series, Fernandez explored two tensions: a figure with hair on its chest and breasts. This surrealist approach, Fernandez said, deconstructs conventional ideas of femininity.
The exhibition can be viewed as a series of self-portraits, like Josie Dybe’s acrylic piece of a nude self-portrait while holding pink anthurium flowers, or Violeta Gonzalez’s photograph of herself posing naked in front of a laptop. Beyond self-portraits, the exhibition also reclaims cultural rituals that once carried shame.
In one corner of the gallery stands the bodice of a quinceañera dress, transformed into sculpture by Sophia Diaz-Muca. Once stiff, white and restrictive, the dress now hangs altered, cut, adorned and reassembled.
“When I was 15, I tried on the dress my dad picked out for my quinceañera,” Diaz-Muca wrote in a statement. “I didn’t want this dress or that party. I wanted a first kiss.” After the celebration, she stuffed the dress into a garbage bag and pushed it to the back of her closet, ashamed of how she looked in photographs: her braces, her baby fat, the angle of her chin.
Years later, she cut the dress apart. “The dress became ‘her,’” she wrote. “I decorated her with the jewelry I couldn’t throw away and the words I could never forget.” Now the garment hangs on the gallery wall, rigid bodice intact, edges frayed, ribbons tied and untied. “The beauty is not in the pristine whiteness of a dress,” she wrote, “but in the mess you will make.”
Nearby are three black-and-white self-portraits. The images were created by Stephanie Barajas, 33, a Mexican-born photographer living in San Jose.
“I fell in love with the ability to have a device in my hand that could capture the world around me,” Barajas said. She found photography during bouts of depression after graduating from college with a degree in theatre. “It’s something that has had a huge impact on my life.”
While aspiring to be an actress in Los Angeles, a network of Latino photographers in East Los Angeles encouraged her to take photography more seriously. Barajas began experimenting with self-portraiture as a way to reclaim her love for her body.
“I’ve been sad all of my life, and my experience of being a fat woman has definitely influenced how I see myself,” Barajas said. “As a performer, and someone who loves telling stories, I think it just became natural for me to turn the camera around and start using myself as both the subject and artist.” The prints are embroidered by hand with colored threads like maroon and yellow. The stitching runs across the images like delicate scars, representing moments when Barajas felt small, bound and restricted by shame.
“I felt like I wasn’t allowed to take up space, physically and emotionally,” she said. “Those three pieces walk you through that process.” Barajas says that over time, she learned to photograph others the way she photographs herself: without judgment.
During the group exhibition’s opening reception on Feb. 14, Barajas was struck by the power art has. “I was so moved by how much you can learn from someone through their art,” she expressed. “This show really allows you to look very deep into each of the artists. Their psyche, hearts.”
For Fernandez, the emotional response is the point. “Beauty isn’t always pleasant,” they said. “If the artwork makes you feel anything, anger, shame, sadness, longing–it’s a successful artwork. So if you go to this show and you feel any emotion, you may want to sit with that.”
A storytelling pop-up will take place at Acción Latina (2958 24th Street) on Thursday, March 12, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. The gallery’s closing reception will be held on Thursday, April 2, at 6 p.m.
