Laura Aguilar
(USA, 1959 - 2018)
Laura Aguilar was born in San Gabriel, California in 1959. Aguilar was the daughter of a Mexican American father and a Mexican Irish mother. Aguilar’s identity as a queer woman of color and an auditory dyslexic, would deeply influence Aguilar’s use of photography as an outlet and a way to explore and challenge notions of identity, the female body, and societal assumptions about beauty. She studied photography at the East Los Angeles Community College and participated in the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, although she mostly considered herself self-taught.
Her work trenchantly explored the nooks and crannies of the human body, as well as the powerful relationship of identity and its connection to land. Over the course of her career, Aguilar’s images were featured in exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hammer Museum, Artpace in San Antonio and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. In 1993, her photography was included in the Aperto section of the Venice Biennale.
