Mujeres 2026: Where women’s voices take center stage at Galería Petrus.

 “La Dormilona” (2024) by Yanira Delgado

By EVA LLORENS VÉLEZ

In a gathering of bold visions and intimate gestures, Mujeres 2026 unfolds as a testament to the transformative power of women’s artistry. Inside Galería Petrus in Miramar, 20 artists -- spanning generations, disciplines and aesthetic vocabularies -- come together in a show that feels less like an exhibition and more like a chorus.

Their works, fierce and tender in equal measure, explore identity, memory, territory, and the multilayered experience of womanhood.

For Petrus, located at 726 Calle Hoare, the annual exhibition in honor of International Women’s Day has been a tradition since 2000. But this year’s edition carries a particular resonance, asserting the urgency and vitality of women’s creative narratives.

“Mujeres 2026 reaffirms our commitment to making female talent visible and creating spaces where their voices become protagonists within the contemporary art landscape,” said Sylvia Villafañe, president and founder of Galería Petrus. “This exhibition not only celebrates artistic excellence, but also the diversity of perspectives that enrich our culture and our history.”

Among the works commanding attention is “La Dormilona” (2024) by Yanira Delgado, an atmospheric oil painting depicting a sleeping woman. Through its dramatic play of light and shadow, the piece echoes Baroque sensibilities while presenting rest as a radical act of softness and autonomy.

Ceramic artist Cecile Molina Machargo contributes “Osamenta Antroposea,” a ceramic sculpture mounted on a metal base. The work evokes the stark contours of a human hip and spinal column, blending organic and industrial elements to suggest both vulnerability and endurance.

In “Remendado,” María Elena Perales uses wood and steel to evoke the delicate labor of sewing buttons onto torn fabric. The work is a meditation on repair -- not as concealment, but as a visible testament to resilience.

Emerging artist Kiara Ponce offers one of the exhibition’s most personal pieces: a self-portrait in acrylic showing herself in her high school uniform, surrounded by floating bubbles and the image of a leatherback turtle (tinglar). Ponce says the bubbles represent her friends, while the tinglar symbolizes the instinct to return home -- to the places, people and memories that shape us.

Meanwhile, Julianny Moyet turns to her native Utuado in the diptych “Díptico: En 123,” portraying a fog-covered landscape meant to convey both tranquility and the fleeting quality of the moment.

The exhibition also features works by Adriana Sánchez, Aniada Hernández, Claudia Senior, Frances Gallardo, Isabel Pérez Franceschini, Liliam Nieves, Naimar Ramírez, Natalia Centeno, Nayda Collazo-Llatens, Olga Albizu, Patricia Esperanza, Rosamar Fonalledas, Tania Monclova, Verónica Rivera and Zilia Sánchez, among others. Together, they form a dynamic collective that explores womanhood through vastly different yet deeply interconnected lenses.

Though varied in medium -- painting, sculpture, mixed media -- their pieces converge in a shared insistence that women’s perspectives are essential frameworks for understanding culture, history and identity.

“At Petrus, we strongly believe in supporting and promoting the work of our women artists, fostering an ongoing dialogue between them and the public,” Villafañe added.

In this spirit, Mujeres 2026 feels both celebratory and forward-looking -- an affirmation that the voices of women artists, once overlooked, now take their rightful place at the center of the conversation.