Marta Sanchez Retablo for Ruhamah (Ex-voto para Ruhamah) Oil and enamel on metal ©SMPA

Growing up in San Antonio, Texas, Marta Sanchez found the traditional prayer- paintings of nearby Mexico (retablos) inspiring. While Sanchez utilizes traditional materials such as metal, she also gives a contemporary interpretation to the retablo by sometimes overlapping images and incorporating mixed media. She also opts for a larger scale (36”x 36”) for her paintings verses the customarily intimate scale of most retablos.

Retablo for Ruhamah is a narrative prayer-painting of the artist’s close friend Ruhamah. Sanchez began by painting a portrait of Ruhamah and subsequently added details denoting Ruhamah’s qualities, interests, and heritage.  The right side represents the heritage of her father, a Canadian Indian, while the left side represents her Jamaican mother’s heritage. 

Sanchez captures the sitter engrossed in one of her favorite hobbies, knitting and surrounded by representations of one of her passions, collecting owls and bears. Sanchez notes the similarities of these figures to Ruhamah and her husband, “he is the strong and cuddly bear and her being the wise but small owl.”

In all of Sanchez’s retablos she “…strive(s) to relate hope, prayers, and humanity of the common man.”

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