One God, One City, One Woman (Beauty Is Not Always Perfect)

Artemio Rodriguez works in a variety of media, but is best known for his masterful woodcuts. Born in the small town of Tacámbaro, Mexico, he crossed into the United States at age twenty-one with the help of a coyote, and in 2002 founded his own printmaking center in Los Angeles, La Mano Press. Rodriguez draws on a variety of references to both Mexican and American culture, including Catholicism, Mexican folk tradition, and the Western art historical canon.

In this three-part composition, a bearded, god-like face looms over a teetering cityscape. Sandwiched between repeated images, a bikini-clad woman crouches atop one of the monumental heads, a grotesque figure at her back.