The themes of Puerto Rican-ness and Puerto Rican identity are common in my work, and a lot of that is what I had to go back and find out for myself and do research and learn about how America had/has a large role in the only colony that still exists in the American empire today. (Dore, 2020)
Elisa Dore was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996 to a Puerto Rican mother and a white father. Her knowledge and experience of her Puerto Rican-ness were limited since her mother suffered from racial discrimination and xenophobia from a young age. As Dore understands it, her mother did not share elements of her story and background as a coping mechanism in order to protect her children from the discrimination. Because of this, she never felt like she belonged completely to either culture.
Feeling confused and like she didn’t belong, she took it upon herself to learn about Puerto Rico, its culture, and its history. From her early years she loved to draw and paint, but she only came into contact with the art of printmaking at the university of Tennessee, where she enrolled in a lithography class (lithography is a printmaking technique that uses a stone plaque as the matrix and chemicals to develop the print). Since then, she has pursued a career in printmaking, exploring different techniques. Woodcut has been at the center of her practice. The printmaking process connects the artist with her heritage, culture, and history. Elisa Dore is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking at Georgia State University and participated in the Southern Graphic Council’s PuertoGrabando (2025), a series of panels, exhibitions and other activities that had the goal of spotlighting the art of printmaking to a newer public and uplifting the art of, in this case, Puerto Rican Artists.
Dore’s choice of printmaking, as an expression of identity, relates to the major role that graphic art played in Puerto Rico’s art history. In the 1950’s, printmaking emerged and developed thanks to the support of institutions like La División para la Educación de la Comunidad (DIVEDCO, c.1949), a government agency dedicated to educating communities on health, political, social issues, etc. Books, movies, music, and community activities were created to foster education. The posters from these movies and images from the books were created by a diverse group of artists who then felt the need to express their art according to their ideals and not in an environment where the government could control it. This led to the creation of the Centro de Arte Puertorriqueño (CAP, c.1950), formed by Lorenzo Homar, Felix Rodriguez Baez, Jose A. Torres Martinó, Rafael Tufiño, and Julio Rosado del Valle. They used a range of printmaking techniques like woodcut, linocut, and silkscreen as tools of cultural resistance to amplify the voices of the people and to show different aspects of the island’s sociopolitical status. In 1957, Lorenzo Homar created El Taller de Gráfica del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña and served as the director to emerging artists who ended up becoming some of the most important figures in the island art scene.
While researching Elisa Dore’s art, I stumbled across a range of works that featured the vejigante mask. The vejigante is a mischievous, sharp-teethed, demon-like Puerto Rican folkloric figure whose existence might be inspired by the masks used in the Spanish carnival traditions. The vejigante, as we know it today, incorporates both Taíno and African influences in its colorful clothing and mask. There are two types of vejigantes: one is the Loíza variation, associated with Las Fiestas de Santiago Apostól; these are created with coconuts and typically have shorter horns. The other is the Ponce variation, associated with El Carnaval de Ponce; these are created with layers of paper and paste, and their horns and faces are typically larger and longer than the Loiza ones, who tend to be rounder. The masks featured in Dore’s work seem to be of the Ponce Variation, since these have large and pointy horns and a longer face. The masks seem to help the artist represent her diasporic experience. In an interview with Voyage ATL, Dore expressed the following about her cultural identity:
I still sometimes feel like an outsider with my clumsy Spanish and feeling not “Puerto Rican enough,” but I also realize there is a beauty in being someone who sits at the meeting point of two distinct worlds—I value my unique dual perspective even with the challenges that it comes with. (Dore, 2024)
Both the print medium and the appropriation of vejigante iconography help her to express that “meeting point” between two distinct worlds.
In Con la cabeza (2019), a 13.5” x 22” woodcut, the artist recreates Lucas Cranach’s Judith con la cabeza de Holofernes (1527-1537); a painting that belongs to the Museo de Arte de Ponce collection of European art. A quick glance at Con la cabeza (2019), generates a feeling of familiarity because of the iconography, but Elisa Dore uses a vejigante de Ponce mask to portray the woman in the artwork. Here we see the artist challenging the typical way that these characters are represented by transforming occidental iconography into an element of Puerto Rican folklore and identity. This scene is one that shows victory over the oppressor. Judith obtained freedom of her people against Holofernes who was sent by Emperor Nabucodonosor to destroy the nations that refused to help Babylonia. Now, circling back at how Judith wears a vejigante mask, it can be argued that Dore is representing Puerto Rico finally coming to power as Judith and claims victory by defeating our oppressor, who is disguised as Holofernes.
Dore continues to use the mask of the vejigante, specifically the Ponce variant, and creates a pattern four years later in Protector (2022). This woodcut with a scale of 19” x 26”, depicts a vejigante crouching on a pine tree branch, commonly grown on the coastal sites of the island. Assuming the stance of a predator bird, the vejigante serves as the Protector of Puerto Rican culture. The resemblance with the bird is reinforced by the chest area and the colored feather-looking details made with recycled streamers. For the first time, the artist shows a vejigante with a more masculine body, which is more in line with how they are traditionally represented. This woodcut portrays the Protector hiding in his natural surroundings, but also hiding behind his mask. This could reflect the feeling of Elisa Dore’s being, as she describes it, “At the meeting point of two distinct worlds.” The figure’s colorful plumage betrays a possible disguise, showing that he’s not hiding, on the contrary he represents the fight of the people of Puerto Rico to preserve our culture and nature.
Lastly, Dore’s En Busca (2024) is a woodcut on muslin scaled at 8.5’ x 5’. A naked woman wearing a vejigante de Ponce mask crawls on the floor, appearing to be in search of something. The silhouette on the back marks her past, showing her previous vulnerable state prior to when she was transformed into the vejigante woman, who challenges the traditional male-like representation of vejigantes. The nakedness of the vejigante woman challenges gender norms and explores the way naked women were represented in art. On the contrary, here she is empowered. Her mask represents power, heritage, and knowledge. It is Dore’s largest work of art, reaffirming her identity as a Puerto Rican woman and, to me, it encapsulates her journey of self-knowledge. As she has related on her Instagram, she was inspired by Seattle-based artist, Nikki Jabbora Barber and her large-scale woodcut self-portraits.
Elisa Dore’s selected works create a bridge between the search for identity, heritage, and womanhood. Through the representation and reinterpretation of an iconic figure of Puerto Rican folklore, like the vejigante and the usage of social commentary, the artist manages to reconnect with the culture and heritage of a place that she often felt disassociated from. In the process, she challenges some assumptions about Puerto Rican culture, like the association between vejigantes and the male figure. Dore captures a conflicted identity, the result of narratives of purity denouncing that some people “are not Puerto Rican enough.” This idea, unfortunately shared and amplified by people living on the island, diminishes the experiences and identity of people living in the diaspora. Elisa Dore’s work is a beautiful and raw testament to the diaspora experience. Her work encapsulates the duality of the cultures that saw her grow, allowing her to become the artist she is today.
References
- Dore, Elisa. “CNPI 2020 Artist Visit Series: Elisa Dore, Annegret Reichmann, and Yerin Yang” Interview by Claire Jauregui. August 26, 2020, Video, 58:22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S5Jx5eAVjw
- Elisa Dore, “Daily Inspiration: Meet Elisa Dore.” interview by VoyageATL, November 21, 2024, https://voyageatl.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-elisa-dore/