Luchadoras – Mexican Female Masked Wrestlers by Alma Lopez

“Luchadoras” a Successfully Crowd Funded Art Project

Alma Lopez: “Luchadoras have been ignored and overshadowed for far too long. In popular culture, we widely recognize Luchadores (male masked wrestlers) and if asked, most of us can easily identify the masks of El Santo or Blue Demon. The sad reality is that in every movement and activity, women are obviously present yet often ignored or overlooked. As a queer Chicana feminist activist, my work focuses on queers and women of color. This will be a feminist activist project which will render Luchadoras so huge that they will be impossible to ignore. After researching Luchadoras, I found historical and contemporary images of their masks and some of their wrestling matches. For this project, I will select five of the most famous Luchadoras (such as La Briosa, La Medusa, La Venus, La India Sioux and La Diabolica) to paint their masks on five large canvas banners.”

About Alma Lopez

Author, artist and visual activist Alma Lopez has for over a decade been involved in an international art censorship controversy. The controversy began in 2010 when she exhibited her photobased digital print (a digital collage) titled Our Lady on an exhibition at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. Her book, “Our Lady of Controversy: Alma Lopez’s Irreverent Apparition,” (University of Texas Press, 2011) features a series of essays about the history of Guadalupe and what her pervasive imagery means in our lives.