User:Owleye143/Laura Aguilar

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Laura Aguilar (October 26, 1959 – April 25, 2018) was an American photographer. She was born with auditory dyslexia and attributed her start in photography to her brother, who showed her how to develop in dark rooms. She was mostly self-taught, although she took some photography courses at East Los Angeles College, where her second solo exhibition, Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell, was held. Aguilar was well-known for her portraiture. She primarily focused on self-portraits and also upon people in marginalized and intersectional communities. Some of the communities include the LGBT and Latino subjects. Much of her work encompassed themes of self-love and social stigma of obesity.

Quote by Aguilar: “My artistic goal is to create photographic images that compassionately render the human experience, revealed through the lives of individuals in the lesbian/gay and/or persons of color communities” Laura Aguilar, 1988

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This is a piece titled Clothed/ Unclothed 1, created in 1990 by Aguilar. This artwork is a black and white photograph diptych. We see Aguilar clothed and then unclothed. In the first image, Aguilar is wearing a patterned shirt and is holding her hands in front of her body. In the second image, she is holding the same pose, the difference is that she is now unclothed. Aguilar is shown to be in her truest and most purest form. The vulnerability in this piece is portrayed through nudity, the seriousness in her face, and the naturalism of her pose. In both images, we see her and who she is. A human being. Worthy of representation.

Clothed/Unclothed is a 1990s series by Laura Aguilar of diptych portrait photographs. In this series she photographs herself, friends, and colleagues. She tries to depict the experiences of those in marginalized communities through this series by ‘exploiting’ their bodies and defying the heteronormative body ideals that we commonly see in most images of in art history, and mainstream media and societal culture. Aguilar especially taps into these topics as she openly struggles with her own identity markers of having a disability, being a woman, being a lesbian, and having a larger body than that of what is acceptable according to the beauty standards in place. Through this series, Aguilar shows the rawness and physical perspective beyond the common conception and idealizations of able-bodied, white, middle-class, and heteronormative body ideals. In essence, this series places emphasis on the human body.

Death
Aguilar died of end-stage renal failure from diabetes in a Long Beach, California nursing home, Colonial Care Center, at the age of 58.