Artist's statement about the work:

Totlazonantzin translates to "our beloved mother" in Nahuatl, and can be seen in the Nican Mopohua ("Here It Is Told"), the first recorded account of the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe, written in the mid-1500s and first published in 1649.In my own experience growing up in the southwestern US, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was very familiar and seemingly ever-present. She could be seen at home and in the homes of friends, inside churches and on the outside of liquor stores, sometimes accompanied by tough-looking Old English letters or flowery script on clothing, blankets, lowriders, etc. One of my favorite t-shirts I wore in the late '90s had an image of Our Lady carrying an injured or dying cholo underneath the phrase "mi vida está en tus manos(my life is in your hands)". Almost a century earlier she'd adorned the banners of Zapata's revolutionary peasant armies, and a century before that was on Hidalgo's banners fighting for independence from Spain. In the words of Octavio Paz, she is "the consolation of the poor, the shield of the weak, the help of the oppressed". The icon of La Guadalupana can represent, among other things, the idea of a celestial and loving maternal figure, a comforting presence both human and cosmic, natural and supernatural. As a feminine counterbalance to the patriarchal emphasis of much of Western religion, she is our heavenly Mother, la Madre del Cielo.I think of the depth of the love between myself and my own mom, and the love between my son and his mama, and I see the imagery of Nuestra Madre/Our Mother as carrying some sense of that kind of love. As an artist I do believe that 'beauty will save the world', and there's great beauty and poetry in this enduring, popular celebration of divine motherhood. I painted this humble interpretation of the iconic image with reverence and sincerity, and a desire for it to transmit some of the love that went into it and the motherly love it symbolizes.