“I did always think, ‘Gee, I’m as good as any male artist.’”

In Houston, Texas, in 1971, one of the first racially integrated exhibitions of contemporary art was held in a former movie theater in the city’s Fifth Ward. The De Luxe Show, now historic for its racial inclusivity, included only one woman: Virginia Jaramillo.

Jaramillo’s curvilinear works, like those included in the show, were the product of her search for a distinct aesthetic that differed from the art she saw around her. Her introduction to the Japanese concept of ma, emphasizing a harmony between space and line, led her to create canvases like this one. She has described these works as difficult to create but an artistic breakthrough for herself as a painter.

Many of the emerging artists featured in The De Luxe Show went on to successful careers. For Jaramillo, despite her success, a full-fledged solo exhibition would not come until 2020. When asked about the show, she said, “I just keep working. It would’ve been nice if this moment had come earlier, but, hey, it came.”

Image Description: This is an abstract painting with two shapes against a black background filling the square canvas. An orange curving shape starts from the upper-left corner and stretches to a little more than half the width of the canvas, then curves downward to the left and ends near the bottom of the painting’s left edge. Another curving shape in a rich maroon fills about two-thirds of the bottom of the canvas from the lower-right side. A thin light-green line outlines the maroon shape. Another thin green line curves across the orange shape, not quite outlining it, and continues to the bottom of the canvas.