To Press 3 (Performance Documentation), 2007, Oil on canvas, 6 x 8 x 1 1/2 inches

Now who’d have thought that ironing could be sexy personally it’s a chore and always will be – but that’s the point to Ana Teresa Fernandez paintings.

Growing up in Mexico, Ana Teresa Fernandez learned at an early age about the double standards imposed on women and their sexuality. Through performance-based paintings, Fernandez explores the territories that encompass these different boundaries and stereotypes: physical, emotional, and psychological.

Fernandez subverts the typical folkloric representations of Mexican women by changing the protagonist’s uniform to the quintessential little black dress, a symbol of American prosperity and femininity and of the Mexican tradition of wearing black for a year after a death. Her paintings portray actual performances where Fernandez takes on the Sisyphean task of cleaning the environment – sweeping sand on a beach, vacuuming a dirt road – to accentuate the idea of disposable labour resources. Braunstein/Quay Gallery.

Press 2 (Performance Documentation), 2006, Oil on Canvas, 48 x 72 inches

Press 1 (Performance Documentation), 2006, Oil on Canvas, 48 x 72 inches