A new Madison College exhibit is bringing together 26 Latina artists from across Wisconsin to explore healing, memory and cultural heritage during Hispanic Heritage Month. “Las Curanderas: From Ashes, We Rise” opens Tuesday at Madison College’s Truax Campus, 1701 Wright St., with a free reception from 5 to 8 p.m. The exhibit will remain on view through Oct. 15. The gallery and reception are open to the public at no cost. The exhibit was organized by Latinos Organizing for Understanding and Development, or LOUD. Local artists Isis Macias and Jessica Gutierrez are serving as curators, marking their first time leading an exhibition. LOUD founder Oscar Mireles, who technically retired in 2024, said helping new arts leaders gain experience is part of his effort to strengthen Wisconsin’s cultural community for the long term. Mireles, who is in his 70s, said he wants to make sure the next generation does not have to build arts platforms from scratch. “It's an opportunity to build the next generation of curators,” Mireles said. The exhibit’s title and theme draw from the Natalia Lafourcade song “María la Curandera,” including the image of fire clearing the way for new flowers. The works consider healing through migration, family, memory, inherited trauma and connections to nature. Gabi Rivera, who is originally from Venezuela, is showing “El Guardián,” a work featuring a macaw and plants associated with her homeland. Rivera moved to the United States in 2017 and worked in restaurants while rebuilding her career as a graphic designer and artist. The macaw and flowers in her piece reflect memories of Venezuela, where she recalled seeing the birds throughout the city and growing up around gardens maintained by her grandmother and aunts. After leaving the country in an emergency, Rivera said creating the work helped her reconnect with positive memories of home. “I needed that special connection to home,” Rivera said. “I needed the good memories.” Rivera said she now has greater financial and personal stability, giving her more time to create and focus on her mental health. Her work, she said, has become a way to process what she left behind while preserving the parts of home that continue to sustain her. Samantha Lezama, a Chicago native and University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student in arts administration, is contributing two pieces. Lezama has worked in Madison’s arts community as an installation coordinator at Arts + Literature Laboratory while building her own practice and selling artwork online. Her work often combines portraits, realism, abstraction and poetry. One of her pieces in the exhibit, “Maira,” honors Maria Sabina Magdalena García, a Mazatec medicine woman and poet from Oaxaca. The portrait is surrounded by herbs including spearmint, yerba buena, rosemary and chamomile, along with a bottle of pills and the words “Eres la Medicina,” or “You are the medicine.” Lezama said the piece reflects the role that traditional remedies and connections to nature played in her upbringing. She emphasized that recognizing those traditions does not mean rejecting modern medicine, but said many people have become disconnected from cultural knowledge about plants and natural remedies. Her second work, “T.Q.M.” — short for “Te Quiero Mucho,” or “I love you very much” — depicts her mother braiding her hair. Lezama said the image honors her mother’s care and sacrifices as a single parent. The work also reflects Lezama’s belief that women often carry unspoken hardships that can be passed through families. Healing, she said, can involve confronting those inherited challenges and creating a different future. “When I break those challenges, or I navigate something, and I come across the other side in a positive and successful way, I think I’m also living her dream,” Lezama said. “And she wins when I win.” For LOUD, the exhibit is also an investment in the people who will shape Wisconsin’s arts scene next. Mireles said communities have no shortage of artists and writers, but need more people prepared to create opportunities and platforms for their work.