About the Exhibit

Sisters Lisa and Janelle Iglesias have collaborated artistically as Las Hermanas Iglesias since 2005, alongside their individual studio practices. Working on opposite coasts, the artists produce playful work in a variety of mediums, engaging issues such as community, feminism, and cultural hybridity. Las Hermanas’ artworks draw on their identities as the children of Dominican and Norwegian immigrants and highlight relationships between family members as well as individuals in society, tying the personal to larger cultural systems and promoting cooperation and collectivity.

Their Contemporary Project debuts work that draws on the sisters’ own navigations of fertility, pregnancy, loss, and birth. Both gave birth during the COVID-19 pandemic when parenting-related concerns, including essential labor, healthcare access, childcare costs, paid leave, and reproductive justice, came to the fore. The artists’ understanding of caregiving as part of a complex network of social issues shapes the themes and forms of their project. Through a constellation of textile, collage, and sculpture, Las Hermanas Iglesias hold space for the complexity and nuance that inform a wide range of reproductive and caregiving experiences.

✸ Take a closer look at some figurines featured in collages and learn about what they represent in our blog post “Deities in the Details.”

Organized by Claire Howard, Associate Curator, Collections and Exhibitions, Blanton Museum of Art

Members get free admission.

Upcoming / Past Events

About the Artists

Las Hermanas Iglesias have been featured in solo and two-party exhibitions at Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, AZ; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, UT; the National Nordic Museum, Seattle, WA; Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA; Ortega y Gasset, New York, NY; and Present Company, Brooklyn, NY, among others, and in group exhibitions at the Queens Museum, Queens, NY; New Mexico State University Art Museum, Las Cruces, NM; the BRIC Biennial, Brooklyn, NY; Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; Abrons Art Center, New York, NY; Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin, TX; El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY, and elsewhere. Las Hermanas Iglesias have been supported by residencies including the LMCC Paris Residency, Paris, France; New Roots Foundation, Antigua, Guatemala; Textile Arts Center, Brooklyn, NY; and StoneLeaf Artist Residency, Kingston, NY; and by grants from the Queens Council for the Arts and the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures. 

Lisa Iglesias (born 1979, Queens, NY) holds an MFA from the University of Florida and is currently an Associate Professor at Mount Holyoke College. Janelle Iglesias (born 1980, Queens, NY) received her MFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University and is an Assistant Professor at the University of California San Diego. 

Image Gallery

Feature Image Credit

Las Hermanas Iglesias, works in progress, 2022, hands of the artists and their family members, cast in plaster; various objects. Photo courtesy of the artists.