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Sun Mad
Silkscreen, 1982
San Francisco, California
Ester Hernandez was born and raised in the San Joaquin valley, the center of the California raisin industry. Her parents were agricultural workers and during the summer Ester worked in the raisin fields where many farms displayed the Sun Maid logo. She was inspired to produce Sun Mad after learning that the area’s agribusiness had contaminated the water table in her hometown. By combining the familiar Sun Maid girl with Jose Guadalupe Posada’s graphic tradition of the calavera or satirically costumed skeletons, Ester links the raisins—usually considered to be a healthy, natural food—to illness and death because of the use of pesticides, fungicides and other toxic chemicals. She is also critiquing the many advertisements that use women to sell products.