Marta María Pérez Bravo (born 1959)[1] is a Cuban artist[2] who is best known for her black-and-white self-portraiture, in which she often uses her own body as the central subject-object to express her own belief in - and practice of - Afro-Cuban religions, particularly Santeria[3] and Palo Monte.
[12] Her practice of Santeria, which emphasizes duality, allows for the existence of this contextualized violence and spirituality in the same image, while also transforming Pérez Bravo’s body into a sacred site in and of itself.
[15] Her portraiture, for its extensive use of Afro-Caribbean religious symbols, has been viewed as a protest against the marginalization or folklorization of Afro-Cuban traditions, done through the artist's exploration of her own identity in depictions of her literally embodied experiences of race, gender, and ethnicity.
[7] Peréz Bravo's exploration of identity challenges notions of colonialism, racism, and patriarchal authority as she attempts to combine the social, political, cultural, historical, and popular aspects of her own personal experiences in her portraiture.
[13][11] Bravo's work has been displayed all over the world including Cuba at the IV Havana Bienal, the V Istanbul Biennial in Turkey and the Kwangju Biennale in South Korea.