Becoming Fish: The Body as a Place of Transformation

Mujeres Pez is a pictorial project by María Uralde that explores the female figure through symbolism, imagination, and emotional transformation. The project is centered around the image of the “fish woman,” a hybrid figure that exists between the human body and a more dream-like, mythological form.

The project was presented as a solo exhibition at Caiman Contemporary, curated by Renata Espinosa. It brings together a series of paintings where the female body appears inside strange, intimate, and almost surreal environments. These figures do not feel completely realistic, but they also do not feel completely fictional. They exist in between, which is what gives the project its emotional tension.

Through Mujeres Pez, María creates a universe where the body becomes a symbol of change. The fish element suggests movement, adaptation, and the feeling of belonging to another environment. There is something fragile in the figures, but also something powerful. They seem to be transforming, surviving, and existing inside their own mythology.

From María’s perspective, painting becomes a way to translate emotions that are not always easy to explain with words. Her work does not try to give direct answers, but to create symbolic scenes where the body can change, hide, and transform. Through Mujeres Pez, her visual language adds a more intimate and psychological layer to the issue, showing how identity can also be explored through imagination, myth, and internal movement.