‘Padre’ is a personal and political excavation of masculinity through a feminist lens, rooted in family history and Latin American experience. Through staged portraits, archival interventions and symbolic gestures, Marisol Mendez traces absence, tenderness, violence and care across generations.

The project began with a set of letters written by the artist’s grandfather to her father and uncle. These intimate exchanges reveal how men within her family struggled to make sense of fatherhood, masculinity and emotional responsibility. Through them, Mendez became a witness to the contradictions at the heart of patriarchal identity: the longing for connection eclipsed by expectations of toughness and emotional restraint, and the desire to nurture overtaken by the pressure to dominate.

In ‘Padre’, staged portraits, archival interventions and symbolic gestures challenge traditional representations of manhood. Hunting, both literal and metaphorical, becomes a central motif, evoking conquest, control and inherited masculine roles. This is unsettled by images of vulnerability, decay and the fragility of bodies and relationships.

Oscillating between social critique and self-inquiry, the work reflects on how masculinity is inherited, performed and, at times, unlearned. By placing softness beside brutality, and intimacy beside absence, ‘Padre’ asks not only what masculinity is, but what it might yet become.

Artist Bio

Marisol Mendez is a photographer and researcher from Cochabamba, Bolivia. Her work studies the tension between truth and fiction and the close relationship between what a photograph creates and the reality from which it emerges. Through research-led and self-initiated projects, she seeks to deconstruct traditional modes of representation and build layered narratives.

Her work has been shown at exhibitions and festivals including Sharjah Biennial 15, Format Festival, Getxophoto and Athens Photo Festival, and published internationally in titles including Wallpaper, Vogue and Die Zeit. In 2021, ‘MADRE’ appeared on the cover of the British Journal of Photography. Her practice has also received awards including the Lucie Scholarship for Fine Art and the Sony World Photography Awards Professional Environment category.