Enma Saiz (b. 1965, San Jose de las Lajas, Habana, Cuba) is a multi-media artist who was formerly a medical doctor, a pathologist. She works in genres of identity, including ethnicity, feminism, immigration, and in medical ethics.
The Wall, 2020, Styrofoam, textile, pins, resin, plastic, and glue, 66 x 72 in., Photo by Matt Stock
The Wall,, Detail, 2020, Resin casts of breast implants, Photo by Matt Stock
The Wall, Detail, 2020, plastic specula and pinwork, Photo by Matt Stock
Peaking through The Wall, Detail, 2020, Photo by Matt Stock
behind The Wall, 2020, Photo by Matt Stock
behind The Wall, 2020, Wood, textiles, glue, steel, and paper, Photo by Matt Stock
Specula Pair 1-2, note removal of J. Marion Sims’s sculpture in NY on mirrored surface, Photo by Matt Stock
Specula Pair 3-4, Photo by Matt Stock
Specula Pair 5-6, Photo by Matt Stock
verting the Spectacle
Sub
My concerns/inquietudes driving this work are:
–decolonizing, manifested as feminist or futurist acts
–educating the public on issues of medical ethics in history and in the present
–subverting the male medical gaze and subverting the woman’s body as spectacle
–learning to accept my body and use it as a source of knowledge and creativity
All of this is anchored in an aesthetic of “looking through” as I did in my career as a pathologist, enabling the viewer to look through while giving the objects agency to “look back” through the use of mirrors, masks, two way-openings… And in a Caribbean aesthetic, subject to a great deal of ambient light and bright, disparate colors, a maximalist aesthetic, and a trickster, Elegua’, element.