Paola Rodriguez is an art therapist and emerging artist. Since 2014, Paola has used mermaids in her practice as a subject through which she explores the themes of social-cultural expectations of women, mortality, and primal instincts. In recent years, she has adopted the human skeleton as the companion for the mermaid to display different dynamics. By definition, dynamics is: “the forces or properties which stimulate growth, development, or change within a system or process”.
- Womxn: roles and expectations from femininity
- Skeleton/fish bones: typically seen as a symbol of death, a reminder of mortality
- Mermaid tail: the presence of the fish tail is direct reflection of our primal animalistic instincts to seek pleasure, safety, shelter