Melissa Gonzalez

Melissa Gonzalez
Unknown, "Woman and Operation"
1975

This image was a part of a series in a book that I was looking through of a mixed media artist. It was the one that caught my eye first since it was the one that had a baby drawn on her stomach. So this image alone, at first glance I thought it was a fetus, but it's not. It looks like a full term baby and then I began to think about what it could mean.

The drawing signifies both life and death. One possibly meaning that the woman is expecting a child and it signifies an entirely new chapter in her life. Or another being the drawing could signify the memory of a past pregnancy that might have gone well and she is thinking back to fondly, or it's the memory of a loss. The black and white photograph is somber, the face of the women is not shown, the intimacy of privacy and only her torso are left for the viewer, without her identity shared.