"Looking 3 (Artemisia)," Mixed media on cradled board,14" x 11".

Through these dreamlike compositions, I’m reimagining the legacy of remarkable women artists, revealing the alchemy of perspective in shaping their story. A celebration of transformation, I invite you to explore the fluid interplay between art, archetypes, and perception.

Inspired by Wallace Stevens’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, artist Tatiana Garmendia delves into the transformative power of perspective through portraits of Artemisia Gentileschi and other notable women artists. By inviting viewers to explore her story from multiple angles, Garmendia’s work reveals the complexities of Gentileschi’s legacy and highlights how perspective shapes perception. In “Looking 3,” for instance, a teenage Artemisia is set against a dreamy tapestry of flowers, blissfully unaware of the red noose coiling behind her reverie.

Garmendia employs metaphors to portray the Archetypal Bride as a symbol of liminality and transformation. The compositions, adorned with zigzagging ribbons, flowers, warped mirrors, and butterflies, play with exaggeration and vibrant color to reflect distorted ideations and archetypal possibilities. This celebration of fluid interpretation blurs the lines where art and alchemy meet, inviting deeper engagement with the narratives of these remarkable women. 

About the Artist

Tatiana Garmendia was born in Cuba at the height of the Cold War and remembers playing in abandoned missile trenches as a girl. In her interdisciplinary work, history is understood as meditations on national and private mythologies, as the stories we tell others and whisper to ourselves. Garmendia has exhibited her work throughout the US and in many countries including England, Italy, Germany, Mexico, and India. She is the recipient of numerous awards including two Artist Trust Fellowships, the coveted Cintas International Fellowship and Pollock Krasner Grant. Her works are in public collections in Seattle, New York, Washington D.C., Miami, Illinois, California, Ohio, and the Dominican Republic. Garmendia has been teaching at Seattle Central Community College since 1993.

Thirteen Ways of Looking is on view February – April 2025. The gallery is open Monday – Friday, 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. Located at Ethnic Heritage Art Gallery, 700 5th Ave, 3rd Floor Lobby, Seattle, WA.