Painted Back to Life: Brian Maguire's Portraits of the Victims of Mexico's 'Feminocidio' Ed Vulliamy - The Observer
go to original May 7, 2014

The mother of Erika Perez Escobedo looks at Brian Maguire's portrait of her daughter, one of the 1,400 women murdered in Ciudad Juárez in the last 20 years.(Brian Maguire)

Bertha Alicia contemplates the portrait of her murdered daughter, Brenda Berenice, at first with little expression on her face. Then she nods approvingly, turns to the wall of her little home in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and takes down a picture of a chicken from Looney Tunes that is hanging there, and puts the portrait in its place. It is as though the dead Brenda had, in some form, returned home.

Brenda is one of some 1,400 factory girls working in Juárez who have been abducted, violated, mutilated and killed since the so-called feminocidio began in 1994. The scene, which arrives towards the end of Blood Rising, a new documentary about the slaughter by director Mark McLoughlin, is so poignant one has to turn away from the screen. Brian Maguire, the Irish artist who painted the portrait of Brenda for her mother, and who collaborated on the film with McLoughlin, clearly feels similarly. In the scene, he stands ill at ease as Bertha thanks him for the portrait and hugs him; the embrace is utterly sincere, almost desperate, from both sides.

"Brian was so relieved, he hugged her so hard he nearly strangled her," says McLoughlin. In an earlier scene, mother and painter had sat together on a sofa talking about Brenda's life and death, and they joined hands. Then they continued to sit, intimately but awkwardly, not knowing what to do, not wanting to let go.

I know that feeling, from reporting the feminocidio for this newspaper and later for a book – that of total but unbearable immersion in this appalling narrative. So does any writer, film-maker, painter who confronts this depth of depravity.

Read the rest at The Guardian



Erika Perez Escobedo, 29, found murdered in Ciudad Juárez in 2002. Brian Maguire's portrait of her was later presnted to her family. (Brian Maguire)

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