Abstract
Laura Aguilar is a Mexican American photographer who was born in San Gabriel, California, and died at the age of 58 years old due to kidney failure. Aguilar was mostly self-taught and took a few courses at East Los Angeles College. In this presentation, I will describe a few of her photographs titled: Will Work For #4, Three Eagles Flying, Center 94, Nature Self Portrait #2, Plush Pony 7, In Sandy’s Room, and Clothed/Unclothed #20. As a woman of color, a lesbian, an auditory dyslexic, and a person who suffered from clinical depression, Aguilar used photography as an outlet to express herself. Laura explored notions of identity, the female body, and societal assumptions about beauty which was her way to communicate when words failed her. Overall, Laura Aguilar was an extremely talented artist who was well known to be ahead of her time exploring unpopular topics throughout the 1990s.