And God Created Woman

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Raised in the Catholic faith, Ibarrondo has long reflected on the exclusion of women within ecclesiastical structures. The absence of female leadership from papal and priestly roles to the historically subordinate status of nuns is deeply embedded in biblical doctrine. These hierarchies are not incidental but rather the product of texts that, for centuries, have legitimized gender inequality under the authority of divine law.

To explore this issue, Ibarrondo juxtaposes vintage sexist advertisements with biblical verses, exposing the continuity between religious and commercial narratives of gender roles. While these vintage ads now seem silly and outdated, reflecting how advertising has evolved over time, the sexist verses in the Bible remain unchanged, still claiming to be divine words. In some works, she overlays the titles of biblical verses in large, bold letters onto these advertisements, emphasizing how religious doctrine and mass media have historically reinforced one another. In others, she applies 20 layers of acrylic paint over actual Bible pages, systematically erasing all text except for passages that explicitly relegate women to positions of submission. This physical process of concealment and revelation mirrors the weight of tradition, demonstrating how its influence persists even as its mechanisms become less visible.
By isolating and recontextualizing these texts, Ibarrondo forces a confrontation with the ways in which language sustains power structures.

Through her work, she raises critical questions: How do sacred writings shape social hierarchies? What stories do we inherit without questioning? And what remains when we strip away the accumulated weight of tradition?

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Born in Bilbao, Spain, Marta Ibarrondo studied Communications and French Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. After spending three decades in New York working in advertising, fine arts, illustration, and film, she moved to Miami in 2020, where she currently has her studio.

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📷 by: @luzin_terior