The half-human, half-dolphin character, La Encantada is based on a traditional Amazon River folk figure, El Encantado (The Enchanted One), who is rumored to mysteriously appear at parties, disguised as human to seduce careless female revelers. Victims are then spirited away to the underwater realm of the Encante, never again to be seen by family or friends.
My female version of this trickster is a siren whose blend of the alluring with the dangerous mirrors and opposes this parable. She is meant to both create and to signify a series of reactions, whereby a viewer is rewarded with momentary satisfaction, only to be thwarted by feelings of unease at having transgressed the normal boundaries of desire. Inspired by Pin-up art, Odalisque paintings, and Classical Indian temple carvings, she exists both as a paean to the potency of female sexuality, and as a testament to my own mixed reactions to female objectification: my simultaneous need for autonomy and thrill at being possessed. La Encantada also speaks to the nature vs. culture dichotomy, manifest in the impact of our increasingly sexually outrageous media on the contemporary person’s libido and imagination.