Stephanie Cruz Mendez
(2024)This work emerged from the challenge of sustaining an art practice with limited resources. Working with a limited archive of negatives, I turned to everyday objects, glass, and paper scraps to construct compositions grounded in personal and conceptual exploration. These constraints became generative, shaping both the process and the way the work comes into being.

Light and darkness move in constant relation, each defining the other. This dynamic operates both within the visual structure of the cyanotypes and in the ideas they carry. The process becomes a physical engagement with this duality, where light and dark converge to form an image. Imperfections remain visible throughout, as shadows bleed into highlights and boundaries soften, reflecting the fragile balance that shapes both the medium and the conditions of existence.


Guadalupe (#1–9), 2024
Cyanotype on paper
Each print is unique through variations in paper, exposure, and process

Using the single negative I had at my disposal, I reprinted the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe over fifty times, each iteration on a different paper and with a different method. Through repetition, the image begins to shift and unravel, its form altered by material, exposure, and handling, revealing how presence is continually shaped through process.