When I was little, I was very restless at school, and the teachers made me leave the classroom, wander around and come back. When I came back, I’d already missed half of the lessons. So in order not to get bored, I started to draw, shapes with volumes, movement, light, leftovers. One day my teachers noticed. They called my parents and showed them my lined notebooks. My parents were surprised, and saw talent in me from that moment on. They put me in art classes with a teacher.
Thanks to my parents, I was able to discover my passion for art. They were my promoters and my supporters in finding my path. My paternal grandmother painted and played the piano, and my father also plays the piano. My family is made up of educators, lawyers, and doctors. The only one who dedicated herself to being an artist is me. I am grateful that I have the best support.
When I started painting, I was still at school and after classes I went to the workshop of Argentine teacher, Carlos Orrea. He taught me everything about art, beginning with figurative painting; I learned to portray reality, nature. I also learned about perspective, volume, light and shadows.
But after awhile, I needed to experiment, to investigate and find new techniques. I had the opportunity in 2004 to study in Florence, Italy at L’Accademia Italiana Arte, Moda e Desegno. I remember the spaces where we used to paint—the beautiful landscapes in the romantic sunset of Florence—and feeling the inspiration of this historic city. My works were in charcoal, drawings of landscapes and architecture.
In 2008, I received a bachelors degree in anthropology with a minor in history and a postgraduate degree in 2009 in journalism from Universidad of Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia.
Something that I have never stopped doing in my life is painting. I studied other things, but I never put painting aside; it always accompanies me everywhere in my life.
When I finished my degree, I determined that I wanted to study fine arts in the US. I married in 2012 and my husband was transferred to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where I had the chance to study fine art and design at Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC). I had one of the best teachers of my life. Bob Troxcel saw potential in me, and pushed me to be a better artist, to look for better things, to demand more and more of myself, to explore and get out of my comfort zone.
Besides Troxcel, there are many artists whom I admire—Kandinsky, Rothko, Pollock, Picasso as well as Colombian artists Edgar Negret, Omar Rayo, Jacanamijoy and others.
I spent 2015-2016 in Madrid, Spain painting and having numerous art exhibitions.
I believe that artists have the power to create magical worlds, represent realities, dreams, criticize and tell history, memory. And there is the charm of being influenced by artists, not only their strokes and their technique, but the power to move the observer with what we do.
Textures have always caught my attention. I start a work by sprinkling water and black acrylic paint on a blank canvas. When dry, this leaves unique and unrepeatable traces of the movement from the water. Then I take plastic stucco, or a medium that gives me texture, such as sand or ashes, and I go over the entire canvas with a spatula. In screen printing, I use maps to give me the textures. As in glass, light and shadow reflections create a play of textures. This interplay constantly intrigues me in my creative process. It gives me the opportunity to create worlds full of color.
I also find ideas from nature. Sometimes I take pictures of objects that have meaning to me, or from geography or universe books showing how incredible earth and space can be.
I always feel that I am solving problems through color, light, shadows and thousands of tones. My work makes me feel vibrant. I get excited; I can be me. Sometimes the work also gives me anxiety. I find myself with thousands of fears and problems that I love to solve, and in the end, this makes me happy.
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