Beginning with earth harvested from the Chihuahuan desert and her own breastmilk, Gabriela Muñoz created an ink. Expertly familiar with the process of screen-printing, the idea of printing directly onto the skin felt like a natural progression for a new series began in 2021 focused on different forms of embodiment related to the brown body.
In Earth Tattoo #1 Muñoz’s mother sits alone in a desert landscape, rooting herself to place. On her back is a rendered portrait of herself and her granddaughter intertwined. A portrait Muñoz felt compelled to make in response to migrant children forcefully separated from their parents at the border. Recently having revealed that she herself was undocumented for many years, the tragedy of family separation was especially difficult to process. Printing the portrait of her mother and child, the portrait represents their three generations unbroken by circumstance and rooted in each other.
In Brownmilking A Future, the artist emblazons the phrase on her bare chest in a viscous paste divergent from her usual applications of breastmilk and earth. The term “brownmilking” is referenced in the song Rooted by the artist Ciara, a song that carried Muñoz throughout the pandemic like an anthem. In the song, a heavily pregnant Ciara vocalizes the importance of nurturing seeds of love, hope, and pride throughout communities of color, but most importantly in our youngest generations. In this sense, brownmilking is the sharing of heritage, culture, continuity, and strength. It is the purposeful reclamation of narrative, an essential component in carving out identity and visions of futurity.
