Sarah Fox’s The Woman Under the Water and Other Stories, which remains on exhibit through Jan. 23, 2026 at the Laredo Center for the Arts, embodies a multi-disciplinary approach in both her materials and her content. She incorporates varied media including painting, cyanotypes, fabric, beads, plants, sharks’ teeth, papier mâché, bones, mirrors, puppetry, and animation. Her narrative images drawn from folkloric stories, mythology, nature, and feminism, also reflect her personal life experiences.
The first series utilizing the process cyanotype evolved after she adopted her son, William. As a new mother and feminist, this life changing event encouraged her to explore masculinity to better understand how gender roles are imposed on boys at an early age. The quilt To William is Fox’s celebratory dedication to her son’s birth story. The animated collage squares use hybrid horse figures to narrate his journey from his mother’s womb to his new family. The story is also presented in the exhibit as a children’s storybook and an animated video.
The Bad Bunny series was created in response to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. The exhibit includes Bad Bunny Gets Lucky Marionette Vignette, and Bad Bunny Gets Lucky, a puppet video. The storyline is centered on the anti-heroine Bad Bunny and employs humor, sexuality, and satire to narrate her date and sexual encounter with a wolf. The character of Bad Bunny subverts and flips the expected gender role outcome. The series was so controversial that it was censored from an exhibit at the McNay Museum of Art in San Antonio in 2022.
After the controversy surrounding the censorship of her work, and navigating through a divorce, Fox began hiking along the San Antonio River to reflect, heal, and reconnect with nature. The river inspired a series centered on a masked green feminine river spirit. Rooted in Selkie mythology, Fox reimagines the tales for Texas, transforming the Selkie into a frightening snake-like creature reminiscent of one found in a Texas bayou. In the original stories, the female Selkies are trapped by fishermen, but eventually escape.
The Woman Under the Water Puppetry Vignette depicts two marionette creatures. The live puppet show reflects feelings of entrapment, ultimate strength, and freedom.
While at an upstate New York residency working on her art in a barn at night, Fox noticed white moths flying in the studio. A fellow artist from Brazil mentioned they were known as Bruxas (witches) in their country. She began this series by creating a mask based on this small spirit of nature. Large scale photos depict the artist wearing the mask, transforming herself into an imposing ethereal fairylike creature.
In her latest series, Fox adopts techniques used by Surrealists by pouring ink and paint onto the canvas to draw out images from the fluid forms, tapping into the subconscious. A psychedelic palette of acid-bright, neon colors both attract and strike back at the viewer. The catalyst for this series was the folklorist Angela Carter, who is known for transforming traditional stories into subversive feminist fairytales.
Fox’s You are not alone portrays a female serpent hybrid surrounded by a snake in an acid natural environment. The sympathetic creature sits on her knees, cradling herself with tears in her eyes and licking her hand.
The artist’s themes of celebration, pain, loss, sexuality, healing, and freedom are expressed through her surrealistic narrative imagery. Her figures often embody subversive opponents to traditional expected gender role norms. Her work questions, challenges, and reshapes the narrative, reclaiming overlooked experiences.
(Artist and educator Eva Soliz earned a BFA at the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; she also attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture residency in Maine. She has worked in museum education and taught in Chicago and Laredo, and was a visual arts professor at Laredo College where she served as department chair for 10 years. She retired from Laredo College in 2024 and currently serves on the Board of the Laredo Center for the Arts and is an art adjunct faculty at Texas A&M International University. Her artwork has been exhibited in Texas, California, Illinois, Mexico, Guatemala, and France.)
