Artist Gabriela Muñoz has pioneered a deeply personal and evocative form of body art: the Earth Tattoo. Beginning with pigment harvested directly from the Chihuahuan desert and uniquely combined with her own breastmilk, Muñoz creates an ink that is both profoundly intimate and intrinsically connected to the earth. Her work, stemming from a background in screen-printing, naturally evolved into tattooing directly onto the skin as part of a series initiated in 2021. This series explores diverse facets of embodiment, especially as it relates to the experience of the brown body.
In Earth Tattoo #1, Muñoz poignantly captures her mother seated in a stark desert landscape, visually grounding herself to the very earth. Upon her mother’s back is tattooed a portrait depicting her intertwined with her granddaughter. Muñoz created this powerful image as a direct response to the heart-wrenching separations of migrant children from their parents at the US border. Having recently shared her own history of being undocumented for many years, the issue of family separation resonated with profound personal depth. By imprinting this portrait of mother and child onto her own mother’s skin, Muñoz visually represents three generations of women, unbroken by circumstance and deeply rooted in their connection to one another. This earth tattoo becomes a symbol of resilience and familial strength in the face of adversity.
Expanding on her exploration of embodied identity, Muñoz’s piece Brownmilking A Future boldly emblazons the term “brownmilking” across her bare chest. In contrast to her typically subtle applications of breastmilk and earth ink, here the phrase is rendered in a thicker, more pronounced paste. The term “brownmilking” originates from the song “Rooted” by the artist Ciara, an anthem that provided strength and solace to Muñoz throughout the pandemic. Ciara’s song emphasizes the vital act of nurturing seeds of love, hope, and pride within communities of color, with a particular focus on the youngest generations. In Muñoz’s artistic interpretation, “brownmilking” embodies the act of sharing heritage, culture, continuity, and inherent strength. It is a deliberate and potent reclamation of narrative, a crucial element in forging a strong sense of identity and envisioning a future firmly rooted in one’s own heritage. Through her earth tattoos, Gabriela Muñoz invites viewers to contemplate the profound connections between body, land, and identity, using the very substance of the earth and the body to tell stories of resilience, heritage, and hope.
