“White his shroud as the mountain snow-

Larded all with sweet flowers;

Which bewept to the grave did not go

With true-love showers.” - Ophelia’s Song, Act IV, Scene 5

The composition for this print was borrowed from John Everett Millais’s “Ophelia”, a painting in which Millais instructed his model to lay in a bathtub for hours in order to capture it.

Ophelia has long been a metaphor for the will of man over the well-being of women. Of the horrors of feminine “madness” that patriarchal oppression engenders. Depictions of her character even changed throughout time to suit the interests of male “scholars” on women’s Hysteria and sexuality. To literature she is just a self-destructive teenager who died a virgin though her death, to be sure, was still aesthetically pleasing.

My Ofelia is a Cihuamichi. A woman at peace from patriarchy. Her image calls to the life-death-rebirth cycle. The bones and salamanders, a symbol for deathlessness, the indestructible parts of the spirit that will always continue on. The Axolotl climbing toward her empty pelvis, the lotus flowers blooming around, all symbols of her procreation and sexuality.

A portion of all sales will go to The National Network of Abortion Funds which works to remove financial barriers to abortion access for all birthing-persons.

Size: 34” x 22”