'Why did she have to die?' Mexico's war on women claims young artist
They gathered in the chill of a high desert night, around a bakery on a street corner in the US-Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, to blend homage with mourning, love with sorrow.
Opposite them: a mural of painted eyes and the words “Te observan” – they’re watching you. And a self-portrait by the artist, Isabel Cabanillas de la Torre, 25, shedding a tear. It is a prescient touch: at the foot of the painting is a floral tribute to Cabanillas, who was shot in the head on 18 January while cycling home.
Days of rage followed: marches downtown blocking the Santa Fe border bridge; women wearing pink balaclavas to commemorate the victims of the rash of murders of women in Juárez during the 1990s and 2000s – of which this outrage is the latest mutation.
Tonight is music, conversation and celebration of Isabel’s metier: art, for sale tonight at voluntary prices towards a fund for her now motherless four-year-old son. “We’re doing what she would have wanted us to do”, said Arón Venegas, the
