In the painting Meat, Mara Espinosa Erda delves into the intersection of personal vulnerability and societal critique. What began as an exploration of self-acceptance through painting her own nude body evolved into a powerful commentary on the objectification and devaluation of women within consumer culture.
Installation view ‘Vamos al Mercado’, Roma, 2025
The work’s central imagery, a female body wrapped in plastic like meat in a supermarket, confronts viewers with the unsettling reality of how women's bodies are often treated as products for visual and physical consumption. The plastic wrapping serves as both a literal and metaphorical representation of the commodification process, stripping the body of its individuality and humanity.
Meat, 2025 | oil on canvas, 120 x 90cm
By juxtaposing the rawness of flesh with the sterile, artificial environment of the supermarket, Espinosa Erda highlights the tension between beauty and exploitation, desire and degradation. This visceral presentation forces the audience to reflect on the ways in which capitalism and patriarchal structures reduce the female body to an object of exchange and aesthetic value.
Through this bold and provocative piece, Espinosa Erda not only exposes the cultural mechanisms that perpetuate this dehumanization but also invites viewers to question their own complicity in the consumption of beauty and identity. Meat ultimately serves as both a personal act of liberation and a broader social critique of the commodified female form.
Installation view ‘Vamos al Mercado’, Roma, 2025