30. A peeing self-portrait
(Do not open if you are not ready to see me peeing)
Last week, I showed this self-portrait at NADA with Miriam Gallery. I have been trying to take this picture for a long time and I was excited when the roll came back from the lab and it surpassed my expectations.
A photograph of a peeing woman is nothing new. Sophy Rickett took a series of women (herself included) in business casual clothing peeing standing up at night in London’s financial district. Emmet Gowin took a picture of Edith Morris, his wife, peeing inside a hut, pee puddle glistening and all. Jia Chang took a series of black and white self-portraits peeing standing up in multiple positions against a black background. I still have wanted to take this picture for a long time.
And there it is. Me, as a fountain, with a trail of bright pee coming directly from me onto the ground. Taken on a cold winter day, in front of a river.
A photograph of a peeing woman is nothing new. And yet, at NADA, I felt like so many people thought it was. Some people were offended, one even asked me how this was art. I could talk about marking territory, about intimacy, about masculinity… That is the point, peeing points at so many things. And at the same time, we all do it.
I was recently on a panel with Tarrah Kajnak, Rachelle Mozman Solano, and Paola Martínez Fiterre. The talk centered around how we use our bodies in art as Latinamerican women. It occurred to me just how much this act of self-representation is prevalent among artists like us. I said out loud two things that I did not even know I thought: I use my body because it is one of the things I brought back from México, and it’s the one thing I will always have, no matter where; I also use my own body because bodies like us are used regardless of our desires. As I am writing this, I think also that I use my body because of how everything in the frame implicates me.
ROLL 609 | FRAME 20
Martha, Germantown, December 2025.
Since I have your attention I want to share a very different kind of artwork I have also been working on.
Bellows, Slide 24
Bellows are collages that look three-dimensional when looked through a viewer. This gif does not do it justice, believe me. If you want to see them in person, I will be doing a show-and-tell of this work at Nice Lab on Saturday 30th, as part of Analog Forever. It’s the last talk I will be doing in a while so I hope to see you there!
❤️🔥