About the Work of María Mercedes Sánchez

By Franklin Aguirre (Artist, Museum Professional, and Independent Curator) 

To make sense of life, or at least to provide a temporary explanation for its mysteries, humanity has always relied on votive images. These images, ritualized and contextualized over the centuries, have given rise to formal belief systems commonly known as religions. Throughout history, myths and rituals have played a fundamental role in the intellectual evolution of humanity and in the way it interacts with the world.

The intervention or appropriation of religious images has always been questioned due to the symbolic weight they carry. In the Middle Ages, these images were not thought to be painted or sculpted by "artists"; their origins were considered almost supernatural. It was not until the Renaissance, with the advent of the concept of the artist, that these images were attributed to specific creators, who were even granted some freedom in their configuration according to the donors or powerful individuals commissioning them.

Today, the situation has changed significantly. On one hand, the number of agnostics and atheists is constantly increasing, leading to different interpretations and relationships with these images. On the other hand, religious iconography has infiltrated pop culture, where it is used graphically and aesthetically (sometimes sarcastically or ironically), further distancing it from its original purpose. Despite these uses, these beautiful images remain relevant and in circulation, whether for their symbolic, artistic, or purely aesthetic value.

Reviewing the history of religious images, not only those inherited from the Judeo-Christian tradition, reveals that their spatial placement implies a context that enhances their power, as seen in the theatrical drama and tenebrism of the Baroque. Altars, processions, oratories, and private chapels activate this array of images and artifacts within the environments unique to their respective religions.

Throughout history, colonizing powers have imposed their foreign beliefs on local cultures. In this sometimes traumatic process, the beliefs of the conquered have been reduced, transformed, or even erased. Eventually, in an act of resistance but also coexistence, these beliefs have hybridized through a phenomenon known as syncretism, keeping both belief systems active in a sort of deconstruction of their narratives and methods.

These reflections bring us to the intention of María Mercedes Sánchez, who seeks to articulate popular imagery, religious iconography, and the aesthetics of spectacle through devices embedded in niches, boxes, and dioramas. These settings contextualize religious images from various faiths in paradoxical and contrasting environments, multiplying their meanings kaleidoscopically.

The eternal dichotomy between the sacred and the profane is addressed ironically and skillfully by the artist, using the naïve character of popular culture and the resource of collage—both analog and digital. This allows her to juxtapose elements in a unique palimpsest that highlights the layers of meaning accumulated between signifier and signified, as well as between literalness and allegory. Indeed, ancient and classical religious iconography contains deities, saints, or their equivalents associated with various phenomena of the tangible and intangible world, worshipped according to their categories. We find gods of rain, earth, harvests, droughts, and more. Today, new problems have emerged, such as hacking, public service interruptions, and bullying, for which there are no pre-assigned saints. So, who should we turn to for superior help in these areas of our lives?

From this perspective, the artist adeptly translates contexts and appropriates images and objects that symbolize contemporary issues unique to our time. Everyday and popular elements like Colombian arepas, cleaning tools, tropical fruits, markets, theaters, and restaurants are reappropriated, recontextualized, and resemantized. These elements are integrated into balanced and harmonious compositions, altered by the complexity of the tensions within them.

These images add to those in places of worship or pilgrimage, where the informal shops around them reveal a hybridization of both hegemonic and popular aesthetics, as well as constructive techniques evolving from stone carvings and altarpieces to inflatable plastic objects, LED-lit acrylics, holograms, and 3D prints. However, the faith these images represent remains, only mutating, technically updating, and strengthening with their continued presence.

Religions, according to anthropology, are structurally part of humanity; humans are "naturally religious" even if they are "culturally atheist." Religions, as institutionalized belief systems (implying collectivity and the social, or the external), contrast with spirituality, which tends towards the internal and the search for divinity within ourselves. Regardless of our beliefs, the question of our existence, our relationship with the whole, and our connection with the ineffable, the numinous, or the sublime persists. It is precisely in religions or spirituality that we seek answers when reason falls short.