Mabodamaca’s revenge, 2026
Paper Collage on Bristol Paper
11 in x 14 in (27.94 cm x 35.56 cm)
Mabodamaca’s revenge is an ode to Cacique Mabodamaca, a Taíno chief of Guajataca who fought against the Spaniards in 1511. His stone monument coalesces with a horizon that shines on a Taíno woman beheading a Spanish colonizer in both a physical sense and in a spiritual undoing.
The beheaded Spaniard is intentionally obscured; the visual focus is not on the colonizer, but on the vibrant life that emerges around it. For the Taíno, birds are winged messengers of rebirth and freedom. The birds and plants encircling her are witnesses of her severance from coloniality; they are guides ready to restore ancestral rhythms to the land that colonialism sought (and still seeks) to break. Rebuilding an intimacy with the land decomposes the failing world order around us as we return to the harmony of the environments around us…