n the first half of the 20th century, when the post-war world was a chaotic blend of progress and loss, advances in medicine and psychology fostered a re-evaluation of the relationship between the mind and the body. In this conflicting context of devastation and development, André Breton and Sigmund Freud spearheaded a new philosophy, in which dreams and reality would resolve into a kind of new absolute truth. Rooted in the same exploration of the subconscious and experimentation with the irrational, Surrealism was born and remains popular today. Although the movement has since been largely male dominated, women have long employed its practices to liberate the creative potential of their subconscious minds, with Mexico an early hive of female Surrealists including Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Leonor Fini, Remedios Varo and more. Often drawing on the figure of the witch, the magical entity gradually became a vehicle for women artists to release the depth of their dreams and explore ideas of gender and sexuality.