Sandra de la Loza
La Guapa, 2025
Serigraph
30 x 22 in.

Sandra de La Loza's print centers on a cherished family heirloom, a photographic portrait of her mother, Hilda née Duran, as a teenager, that ebodies the 1940s-era Pachuca style. Larger than life, she is positioned on a found archival photograph of an aerial landscape capturing the expanding the urban landscape where she came of age. This landscape was partially shaped by a war manufacturing economy in Los Angeles during and after World War II. The print, La Guapa, pays homage to the Pachuca that blossomed in a troubled, at times hostile environment. A testament to resilience, the iconic La Guapa flourishes alongside and parallel to the native's cattails, sycamores, frogs, and migratory birds that create a unique WWII urban ecology.