Sofía Maldonado-Suárez on Changing Art Styles, Commissions, and Isolation - Ep 03
ON THIS EPISODE
This week on First Coat we have Sofía Maldonado-Suárez, an artist based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Sofia has created various projects in New York, Puerto Rico, and around the world, including at The Bronx Museum, The Times Square Alliance, Groundswell Community Project, No Longer Empty; as well as and The Ringling Museum, in Florida; Real Art Ways, in Connecticut; The 10th Havana Biennial in Cuba; and many more international mural collaborations.
I spoke with Sofia about her public mural work, her studio practice, and how her art style has changed over time. You’ll learn about how Sofia does art commissions, her thoughts on community-based work, and what’s inspiring her right now.
This interview was recorded in May 2020.
Read the full transcript here.
LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE HERE 👇🏾
LINKS
Femtrap Video by Sofía Maldonado-Suárez https://vimeo.com/313463768
Sofía’s page on Turning Art http://blog.turningart.com/in-studio/sofia-maldonado
Beyond Bling show at The Ringling Museum, Sarasota, Florida
Serafina Beach Hotel mural by Sofía
Outbrain mural by Sofía
42nd Street Mural by Sofía Maldonado
Kalaña project by Sofía
Skateboard park project by Sofía
AMMurA - women muralists in Argentina
Guest | Sofía Maldonado-Suárez, Artist
Sofía Maldonado-Suárez is a Puerto Rican artist of Cuban descent, from San Juan, Puerto Rico. She has spent most of her career focused on derelict spaces, constructing a poetic experience of colorful abstractions, within uninhabited buildings. Maldonado's urban walkabouts inspired a desire to transform the environment with color by painting abandoned structures using a paint sprayer. Her career is focused on public art and color field painting. The artist also has a dynamic studio practice as a painter and digital illustrator. She develops a sense of community through workshops and versatile community engagement projects. Collaborations with musicians and underground subcultures are an integral part of her artistic practice and aesthetic.
Maldonado's characteristic style is recognizable for its Caribbean palette and roots in graffiti. She deconstructs organic forms in order to explore color fields in her work. She represents feminine energy in her expressive outlines and sensually themed drawings. The artist’s colorful landscapes extended in space indicate the passage of time and the ephemerality of architectural structures. Maldonado's highly saturated, almost fluorescent, tropical palette reflects her animated personality and creates optical vibrations due to her energetic marks and distinctive application of color.
Throughout her career, Maldonado’s illustrations of femininity have been defiant and present the pleasure associated with the female experience in detail. A deep awareness of spatial deconstruction and what has been established are manifested in her architectural color interventions.
Maldonado reflects her colonial reality in site-specific projects such as Kalaña, exhibited at the Whitney Museum Biennial, NY (2017). In this project, as in her massive abstract murals, she employs color as a signifier of abandonment, rather than as a beautifying agent. Maldonado explores the spectrum of the feminine body by challenging cultural myths and social constructs from the outlooks of hip hop, trap music, and reggaeton.
Maldonado has earned a BFA from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico and an MFA from Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, New York. She has participated in select exhibitions: PST:LA/LA at MOLAA, California (2017), La Bienal de Asunción, Paraguay (2014), CAAM, Canary Islands (2013), Museum of Art and Design, NY (2013), Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico (2012), Museo del Barrio Biennial, NY (2011) and the Havana Biennial, Cuba (2008), and Real Arts Public, Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT. She was awarded the Manhattan Community Arts Fund Grant, LMCC, (NY) in 2012.
Follow Sofía on Instagram (@sofiamaldo, #sofiamaldonado) and check out her website. You can also find her on Facebook and LinkedIn.
Your Host | Stephanie Echeveste, CEO & Founder of Distill Creative
Stephanie Echeveste is an artist and art consultant based in Brooklyn, NYC.
Follow Stephanie on Instagram (@distillcreative or @stephanie_eche), Twitter (@stephanie_eche), YouTube (Distill Creative), LinkedIn, and check out her art website.
Support First Coat by backing us on our Patreon.
Learn more about Distill Creative’s services for real estate developers.
Are you an artist? Sign up for our Distill Directory and you’ll be considered for art commissions and future projects.
-
Stephanie Echeveste 00:02
Welcome to First Coat. Where we explore public realm art, how it's made and why it matters. I'm your host Stephanie Echeveste, an artist and entrepreneur based in Brooklyn, New York. I run Distill Creative, where I curate and produce site specific art projects for real estate developers. This week on First Coat, we have Sophia Maldonado, an artist based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Sophia has created various projects in New York with the Bronx Museum, The Times Square Alliant, Groundswell Community Project, and No Longer Empty, as well as the Ringling Museum in Florida, Real Art Ways in Connecticut, the 10th Havana Biennial in Cuba, and many more international mural collaborations. I spoke with Sofia about her public mural work, her studio practice, and how her art style has changed over time. You'll learn about how Sofia does art commission's, her thoughts on community based work, and what's inspiring her right now. Here's our conversation.
Stephanie Echeveste 00:53
Welcome to First Coat, I can't wait to jump into today's interview. We have Sophia Maldonado here today and she's actually in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which is where she is from, but she spent a lot of time here in Brooklyn, which is where I am right now, and I first saw her work at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. I was with my sisters and they loved the wall, and I was like, who is this artist? So that's how I first found out about your work and I had to learn more. So welcome to the show.
Sofia Maldonado 01:22
Thanks for the invitation.
Stephanie Echeveste 01:24
Can you tell us about who you are and what you do?
Sofia Maldonado 01:27
Sure. My name is Sofia Maldonado and I am a Puerto Rican artist born from a Cuban mother, so I'm half Cuban, half Puerto Rican, but I ended up in New York for eight years, and maybe my work is based in abstraction, murals, and also Canvas work, and I also have another side of my work that is more fun that works with the female body and sensuality, and it taps into my Latina roots, subjects like reggaeton and trap. So I've done a few projects that are sort of more drawing and it has a more performance aspect to it. So, I divide myself in those two scenarios. I am also a professor. I teach in different universities in Puerto Rico, and I am a mentor, as well, for different types of organizations that work with youth programs.
Stephanie Echeveste 02:24
Awesome. Yeah, I watched one of your videos, with the, I think it was female trap. Which was so cool! It made me so happy because I really miss going to clubs, I haven't been dancing in a very long time now, and so seeing that and seeing the energy and the shots you captured was really interesting.
Sofia Maldonado 02:46
Yeah, that's a project that was titled Femtrap, and I started it right after the hurricane Maria hit the island. The island was totally stuck, no cultural programming, no water, no electricity, nothing, right? And then once things started to pick up, I decided to launch that project in a very small gallery/dive bar.
Stephanie Echeveste 03:11
Hmm.
Sofia Maldonado 03:12
And it's a project I started a year ago in New York, specifically in Greenpoint. It was a residency I did in a space that's called Point Green based in GreenPoint. And Karla McCormick, the curator, was the one that referred me to that residency. And it was a very free residency and that's where I developed the project. I started listening to Hispanic trap, especially women, and I got obsessed with their videos, their YouTube videos. So I did a huge list of YouTube videos, and I used to take screenshots of the videos to draw them to develop a series of watercolors. Eventually, when I presented the project I included the videos as a projection. So it was a video projection that lasted like two hours, it was a loop, and then, of course, the drawings. When I got back to Puerto Rico, the hurricane happened, and then when things started to pick up, I wanted to do an exhibition to have slightly more party vibes. So the projection became sort of like a soundtrack of the exhibition/party because it was projected in the dance floor. And the drawings had a different space. And that night, we sort of improvised, we- friends of mine and I, we transformed ourselves into, I don't know, sort of like, trap culture. I don't know, characters we could say and then one of my friends had a pole, so we started pole dancing and just doing a very freestyle performance that we didn't even rehearse, and that gave, that opened a new direction for that project. And then along that year 2018, that project represented different performances. And eventually, in November of 2018, the project was part of a special project in MECA Art Fair, which is an art fair that they've been doing now for, I think like 3 years in Puerto Rico. So it had its own specific booth, and then I was able to present a more formal aspect of the project. So I had the drawings, at this time, there were more drawings than the prior. They were more detailed, and I had the projection of the video that documented the project of our performances. And then of course, it has some merch, because I always like to have some sort of more accessible artwork for younger collectors or art enthusiasts. So yeah, those were a really interesting project. And I do those types of projects and then I go back to mural painting or while doing that, I'll do mural painting. It could be in different art festivals, or I do private commissions. So it's interesting to have this duality because it helps me to play in one side, even though it's very formal and then when I'm doing the paintings and I'm working in a more abstract language, I am much more serious and more structured. So, it's nice to have that flexibility in your practice.
Stephanie Echeveste 06:51
Yeah, for sure. What role do you think art has in public space?
Sofia Maldonado 06:55
Well, for me it's very important because imagine we live in a city where you're constantly bombarded with ads, right? You have billboards, you have this subway ad, you have your phone, and everything is visual, visual, visual. But then when you encounter an art piece in a park or an art piece in the subway station, or just in the outdoors, you know, could be a mural, your perspective of your day, of your scenario changes, you know, you have a moment of admiring an artwork that can speak to you and can give you that peace of mind that sometimes we need throughout the day. So public art is very important. I think it's essential, between having parks and having art in the city, I mean, there's no way we could survive otherwise, you know? So for me, when I do my abstract work, I always think of that, I always think of the public that would encounter it, how it would interact with, like you said you saw my work in the MOLAA and how it impacted you, imagine before that, that was a wall that was painted, I don't know, gray, you know? It's very different in that scenario that you go to a museum that has a huge wall painted gray rather than having a huge wall with a really big mural, you know, and it has this Caribbean Latino flow, you know, so it definitely molds the site. So this is something very important for me as well. When I paint I really think of the site, how can this piece integrate with the site, it doesn't push itself, for example, it doesn't invade that community. I have a project that I did a long time ago in Real Art Ways, in Connecticut, specifically in Hartford. And it was a mural piece that was in this street that is a very Puerto Rican community, very strong presence. And the mural was going to be mounted on a historic building so it couldn’t be painted on the building, we had to build a structure and from each window, it was six windows, there was a female character coming out, like I don't know maybe some, I don't know saying hi or something and these characters that were maybe three feet tall, on wood panels. And on one of my walks- another thing I like to do when I get commissions, especially community commissions, is I like to walk in the neighborhood, I like to go to the nail salon, go to the panaderia, to the little food trucks, you know, I like to meet people and be like, ‘hey, I'm an artist doing this or that in your neighborhood’, you know, get to know some locals. So on that trip, I went to the nail salon, and I loved it and then I told the girls- they were artists, you know, their portfolio was impeccable. And I'm like, ‘hey, I'm doing this project around the corner, I have these wood panel girls, would you like to pimp them up?’ And they were like ‘yeah!’ so I brought them and of course, I paid them, you know, they were like clients, and the girls did their nails. They did eyelashes, tattoos, eyeshadow so they pimped up the girls, and then I took those characters and put them on the mural. And I think that was a very organic collaboration, but it also included females from that community, so they felt identified with that mural. It's not just me coming into the community and painting and then peace out, you know? And then they were reviewed in the local newspaper. So, I like to do that type of project if it's possible.
Stephanie Echeveste 10:56
How do you think more artists can make that possible in their work?
Sofia Maldonado 11:00
Well, I mean, that's something I have thought about before, but I got to the conclusion that a lot of artists that work in public space, we don't all have the same priorities. Some people love to just paint and not interact with anybody. And it's not of me to say, ‘hey, you're doing that wrong’. You know, I think everybody, every artist has their own way of working. But I always advise, and it's always been in my art statement, I would say the fact that I like to interact with locals is important. I think it's important to interact with locals because at the end of the day, you are in their space.
Stephanie Echeveste 11:45
Definitely. I hear what you're saying that some- different artists just have different approaches to different things.
Sofia Maldonado 11:50
Yeah. I mean, we can’t battle them about it, you know? So, yeah, you know, not gonna get anywhere. So I think if you're an artist, and you can, if you can adapt that to your work, amazing. If you don't feel like doing it, then, I don't want to argue about that. I’d rather argue about other stuff, you know, but it's definitely very important, I would say. It's something that's very important to interact with the community, because at the end, you're leaving, and the piece is staying.
Stephanie Echeveste 12:22
Can you talk about your process in doing a public project? And also maybe how those projects come about, like how do people find you? What do you normally do? How do you budget for that? If you're taking time to go on walks or spend time in the community, is that something that you build into your fee? Or is that just something that is wrapped up in what you might charge for something?
Sofia Maldonado 12:44
Well, it depends on what project we're talking, usually when you get invited to public art festivals, there's a specific fee. And usually they are the ones that find you the wall. You can have a talk with the organizers, maybe suggest like, ‘hey, you know, I work in abstraction, I need a wall that the person is open to that’. If you have a more specific project, you can ask to get in contact with a not for profit that works with, say, for example, if I work with women, maybe I'll ask like, ‘hey, is there any organization or skateboarding to have done that before?’ I remember on an exhibition that I had in the Ringling Museum, it was called Beyond Bling, and it was a group show with Kehinde Wiley, Mickalene Thomas and I. And on that exhibition, I had some work inside the museum, but I also suggested to the museum, ‘hey, if you have a youth program, I would like to work with the community. Would you happen to know if there's a skateboard around?’ And they found the skate park, they linked me up with the community, skateboarding community and then we ended up doing a piece that was painted with different assistants and local youth. And eventually, we did like a little skate parade for the little ones, because there was a law in Sarasota that you weren't able to ride your skateboard in the city. Super weird. But it was nice because, you know, most of the kids have never ride, you know, have never ride the skateboard in the streets. So the parade gave them the possibility. And then we ended up in the skate park and we had a little skate jam and that was amazing and I like to do that type of project, no work. I also, even though I'm invited for a specific project, I also suggest like, ‘hey, is there any possibility to interact with a specific community?’ Then for the private commission, say if an architecture firm or an interior design firm, if we're working with a hotel or like a corporation, something like that, that's very different because there's- they are the ones that are in the middle. And they're the ones having the conversation with the client. So most of the time they look for my work for very specific reasons. Either they want abstraction or they want more Caribbean sort of vibes. And that's a back and forth conversation, but it's always very respectful because they already know how I work. So it's not like they're asking me to do something that's not in my range. And budget wise- also, sometimes they asked me to quote, but most of the time they already have a budget they're working with, so I sort of manage what's the budget they're working. Sometimes the budget covers only the art, sometimes the budget covers the art, the materials, and if there's any other equipment that we have to rent, and of course, an extra fee for an assistant. So the conversation is always very different. And as for how I organize myself, I do usually three prior sketches, we have a meeting and they decide which sketch they like. I also, prior to sketch, ask them if they have a specific piece they have seen on my website that they are interested in, so that way I know where to drive and design the prior sketch. And then once we have those, the selection between the three sketches, then we do a second round. Sometimes they're like, ‘hey, can you have a little bit of this sketch mixed with this other sketch?’ And it's funny, also, color is very important because some corporations are like, ‘no we cannot use this color because it's the color of the, you know, of the other corporation that is our enemy’. So, I'm like, ‘okay, so we're not using it’, or maybe the client is like, ‘no red is not good for my business’. So, that type of thing I'm like, okay, so we're not using that color, and then I start working towards a second sketch that is more in the client's vision and then we could go to a third sketch, but usually from the second we’re pretty close, you know, maximum third sketch, I always say. Otherwise, we'll just go forever, because with art, you can keep doing changes and changes and you got to decide, you know, it's like a tattoo. You're getting a tattoo or not? But I enjoy either/or scenarios because sometimes I get very inspired from this project, you know, from the discussions and then it also nurtures my next work, you know, because I might try a different version or I might try a different use of the colors that I used and that clients mural, you know, so I think everything is a continual dialogue.
Stephanie Echeveste 18:14
Have you worked on any projects for, like you were saying an interior designer for an office space or a hotel or an apartment building, and then did you hear how people interacted with the piece later?
Sofia Maldonado 18:28
Yeah, I usually ask like how it was, I've been working a lot with a consulting firm, their name is TurningArt. They're based in Boston. And usually when I finish a project, I don't have much interaction with the office. But I ask, you know, like, ‘hey, how did it go?’ I did another project for the hotel, Dorado Beach Hotel, the Ritz Carlton in Dorado, here in Puerto Rico, and the same. The thing is like, if there’s sites where you can’t go back, it's weird. And then you just kind of get that- that was their main suite, you know, it was like a whole house.
Stephanie Echeveste 19:12
Oh, wow. Like inside where someone would actually pay to stay, basically?
Sofia Maldonado 19:18
Yeah. Yeah. And it's super, I can't even imagine how much it is a night. It’s a billionaire thing, you know? But then I ask because I like to know, sometimes I don't even know but I just think I can see how it shapes the space when you’re getting more feedback especially when you're painting outside. When you're painting outside, you get people walking by and they talk to you. But when you're doing these projects indoors, you're usually either working at night or working, you know, when there's nobody around or it's being remodeled, and it's just construction workers. So the feedback mainly comes from, from the designer. Another important thing is that prior to finishing the wall, I have a visit. I have two visits, usually. First visit where I'm like, 'hey, this is the direction of the mural, we're halfway, look how it's coming along' and with TurningArt, they usually bring people from the firm. They do a little mix of different- from the CEO to the secretary, they do different, like a mix, and they all come in. And then I'm like, ‘okay, cool, okay, I'll do that, I'll do that’. Then I'll do the changes and then present, ‘hey, these are the changes that you said, we're about to finish in two days, what do you think’, you know? And they're like, ‘yeah, I love it’ or ‘change this’ or ‘I don't know, this color is too much’. And then I’ll do the last touch ups and we're good. And then clear coat and we're out.
Stephanie Echeveste 21:02
Interesting. That's really cool to be brought into different cultures, like company cultures.
Sofia Maldonado 21:08
Yeah, especially nowadays, there's like a new scenario in the work space where they're trying to create a more vivid and more fun workspace, from what I've noticed. I did another project here in Puerto Rico in another, like a workspace where you can rent, like work rent
Stephanie Echeveste 21:28
Like a coworking?
Sofia Maldonado 21:29
Coworking that’s it. And I know the owner and every time she sees me, she's like, ‘oh my god, I love, it gives such a different vibe to the office’. I also did in New York, I did Outbrain, it’s another coworking space, and I can see it, it's just changed the whole scenario of the office, of the space and I think it's very important, especially for people that are more than six hours, eight hours, ten hours inside an office, I think you really need to have some artwork.
Stephanie Echeveste 22:04
Right.
Sofia Maldonado 22:05
Otherwise you'll go insane.
Stephanie Echeveste 22:08
Yeah, just looking at white walls. The only mural I've ever painted, the first one is in my, it's a shared office space with my fiance, I have a studio and then he has his employees, and I was like, ‘this is a wall can I just paint it?’ Because, I mean, it exists and it's there. But it was really fun to do. And I did do it collaboratively with his employees where we went out and took pictures, and then they picked their favorite photos of the neighborhood and I kind of incorporated it into the piece.
Sofia Maldonado 22:36
And people love being part of the process because then they feel like ‘okay, I worked on this’, you know? And I think it's important for them to be part of the process so then they’re going to appreciate it even more.
Stephanie Echeveste 22:49
Right. Yeah. And it's so different than what they're normally doing all day. Just probably even being able to talk to you and giving you feedback on your work is probably really interesting.
Sofia Maldonado 23:00
Definitely.
Stephanie Echeveste 23:02
What tips do you have for other artists working in public space, particularly for someone who maybe hasn't done that much in the public sphere and is doing painting on canvas or even doing sculpture work in a more fine art setting?
Sofia Maldonado 23:17
That you want to transition to public art. One thing is transition to public art and another thing is transition into murals, which I always do separate things, you know, because public art, it can be so many things, if you’re a sculptur, doing small sculptures you can do larger sculptures, you know? As for murals, I would say if you just want to get yourself out there and known, you just gotta start DIY. You gotta paint as much as you can. Even if you don't get paid, just go out there and knock on some doors like ‘hey, can I paint your wall’ and build yourself a portfolio if you don't have murals, at least you have some paintings that you can show or drawings or sketches. And once you get out there, you'll see things start to flow. I feel like the- when you paint in the city or like in an outdoor space, people start to communicate with you and you connect with this whole network of possibilities, you know? You might get a possible next mural gig, you know? Or if you document it and put it on your Instagram and all of a sudden, a mural festival sees your mural and they invite you, you know, so I think, don't be afraid, just go for it. Then as for public art, I would say there you need more funding, there you need more strategy. So it would be nice to have a more structured idea of what you want and apply for more open calls. I think that's a good start with public art. Because- and then you need to know about budgeting and all that but that's, you know, we can learn that online. So it's a matter of losing the fear, just get yourself out there and work in new scenarios.
Stephanie Echeveste 25:06
Are you an artist? Submit your portfolio at distillcreative.com/artists. You'll get on our Distill Directory, our artist database, and be considered for upcoming art commissions. How has your style changed over time? And can you talk about your move to doing more abstraction? I guess now you're doing both.
Sofia Maldonado 25:25
Yeah, definitely. Well, I started at a very young age, I would say like maybe 16. I was in an art High School, but I started doing murals because I had a lot of friends that were into hip hop, and then of course, we're into graffiti in Puerto Rico. And we started going on the weekends to paint walls illegally, eventually legally, but I have always painted with latex paint, because where I found there were like more richer colors. Back in those days, the only spray paint that we could find was Krylon, and it's the brand that you find in any hardware store. Now there's more graffiti oriented cans, you know, and you have so many colors, but back in the day, we didn't have that, and I'm all about color. So I started painting murals with my graffiti friends, and then one thing that I noticed is that I was not really into creating square or rectangular compositions, I was more interested in how the building or the wall looked. And I enjoy that rich deterioration that we have in the Caribbean when the cement starts to crack and the building haven't been painted for like 10 years. And of course, there is so many abandoned spaces, especially in those days. Because now the scenario has changed it, because the laws of Puerto Rico have changed and there have been a lot of like, more international influx, but back in the day, it was like zombieland. Especially the area of Santurce, that's where we used to paint. So my paintings were very organic forms, and they would wrap around the building, so the structure was very, very important for me like where I- the building that I would select. Eventually I went to- I studied BFA, my BFA in La Escuela de Artes Plásticas, which is an art school based in Old San Juan, very important school, and there I started working more with graphic design, and I graduated eventually with a BFA in graphic design. And then my murals started to get more graphic, and my last, my thesis project was a 112 feet long mural, it was huge. And I painted it only with one scaffold that it was like eight feet wide, eight feet long, and I just moved it along the wall, and I had a lot of friends that would help me paint. So I started sort of shifting in creating more of a graphic element while doing murals, and the same thing, being very aware of not having a background, so I would not frame my murals on a background. So I would just kind of navigate through the building. And that has to do a lot with practices similar to Gordon Matta-Clark, and artists that work with the city or artists that were working color field painting. While going to the University I started to shift, you know, and then when I did my master in Pratt Institute, I had the honor to take a class and eventually he was my thesis professor, his name is Ernesto Pujol. He's a Cuban artist, and he works a lot with performance. But he was the one that teach me how to use my studio, you know how to have more of a formal approach to painting. Because the first year, I guess a semester, in my MFA, I had no idea how to do my studio because I was constantly painting murals. So I didn’t have a formal studio practice and then I remember for the open studios, I just threw a punk show in my studio, and I guess that's a way of using your studio. So space and sight has always been very important for me. Very, you know, I, of course, can talk about murals, but when I think about mural, I think more like the impact in the space. Eventually when I graduated, I started working on different projects that were more towards public art like the one I told you in Real Art Ways. Then I got a commission in The Time Square Alliance, doing another really big mural in 42nd Street, and then I started exhibiting in different museums and galleries and eventually started featuring my work in art fairs. Another important part of my work is that I interact a lot with the skateboarding scene, because for me it’s a community that can not only appreciate my work, but they can ride over it. So for my thesis in Pratt, my MFA thesis, what I did is I went back to Puerto Rico, and then I found this abandoned pool in the middle of the rainforest in El Yunque, and with a group of friends, we took all the weeds and took all the leaves and there were plants growing. So we cleaned up the whole space, and then we cemented it, I paint the bowl, right? And then we did like a skate jam. And then it's beautiful to see skaters riding on top of your piece, you know? So I think something that has always driven me is how can my work impact the audience and how can the audience kind of walk inside of it. And on that note, in 2015, I moved back from New York to Puerto Rico, and I created this project called kalaña. And kalaña was an abandoned factory, tobacco factory in the town of Caguas, which I transform into a temporary ephemeral community hub, and then on that project, I painted the inside of the factory. Rather than the outside, the main piece was in the inside and it was floor, ceiling and walls. So when you go inside the piece, it was like a huge, huge factory abandoned, nothing inside, only columns and blocked up windows, it’s beautiful, I have it in my, in my website, that whole documentation. And eventually one of the photos of that piece was exhibited in the Whitney Biennial, as part of Occupy Museums project in 2017 that it talked about the debt. The student loan debt, and artists that have debt like me. And especially that project, kalaña was oriented and was done while the economic crisis in Puerto Rico in 2015, yeah, that we had a big crash, and there were a lot of abandoned buildings and the idea of that project was to suggest how artists can take over these abandoned buildings and create them into more useful scenarios, you know? Also using abstraction in space.
Stephanie Echeveste 33:06
That brings up a lot of questions. I've seen these projects on your website, and they’re amazing, I mean, they're part of why I'm so excited to talk to you, because I think they're really- they're inspiring to see in that you've taken initiative to actually find spaces and then collaborate with people, but also, logistically, they probably had some headaches, like insurance, access, safety, I don't know, just all these things that become more difficult. I think there's the route of just the DIY, like finding space and doing the project and then documenting it and then you get more projects, but then that inevitably brings about more problems. Because then if someone's commissioning for a project, then it's like, but also you need insurance or also you need to, like do this and that and that. So it's- I think that's what's interesting to me about your work is that you continue to go back to find new avenues to explore new spaces. Regardless of anyone asking you to do it, basically.
Sofia Maldonado 34:08
Yeah, I do. I definitely live by the DIY, you know, flow and the DIY, like you were saying earlier, like if you're a young artist, or if you're a studio artist like, ‘oh, I want to get out’, you can’t really wait for somebody to be like, ‘hey, I have a commission for you’. You gotta do it like DIY at first, and then see what happens. You know, that's how the abstract paintings- when I did that shift of I was working on the female characters still while in New York, and then I decided it was 2000 I think, well, that I decided to do a change, 2012, 2013 probably, I already had like a, a follower of clients that were really into my figurative work. And I said, you know what, I'm done, I don't want to paint more girls, you know, at least for now, I thought it was gonna be forever. Nothing is forever. And then I shift to abstraction, and, of course it hurt my career for a minute because people were like, she went crazy. And that's another thing, you can’t really drive your career because you have some like clients that you know, you don't want to confuse them or you have an established line and you don't want the art market to- whatever with the art market, you know, let them follow you, don’t follow them. So, when I switched, of course, I was a few, maybe like three years of well, nobody's getting it. But the important thing when I did the shift is that I was very specific. I had a very specific language. I studied a lot. I studied Katharina Grosse, I went to Berlin, I studied Mark Rothko. I studied a lot of, I would say, if I'm going to transition, I'm going to transition very serious. You know, this is not like me going crazy. And even though I had a vocabulary, I was like, I don't want to call these pieces murals, their interventions in this space, you know, and I didn't want to use the word graffiti or mural or you know, I wanted to use a whole different language and educate people and be like, ‘hey, you know, no, this is not a mural. This is an intervention in the space. That's why I'm like spraying on the wall and the ceiling and the floor’, you know? And I would talk about color field painting, and then people start to be like, ‘okay, she knows what she's doing’. And now-a-days, I feel very comfortable working sometimes very figurative, right, and I have all this work that's about sensuality and now in the pandemic, I'm working more towards digital, this whole side of femininity, women in characterism, and then I have the other side of abstraction that has been fitting very well in different private commissions and you know, something that started so anarchic all of a sudden, you know, you get, I have like- there's a hotel here that the lobby is like a huge abstract wall that I did, it’s called Serafina Hotel in Condado. So it's interesting how when you give it time and you keep pushing and pushing the other side in a market opens, you know, and understands that shift that you did in your line of thought.
Stephanie Echeveste 37:28
In regards to your abstraction work, what feeling do you want people to get when they either walk in it or on it or by it?
Sofia Maldonado 37:36
Well, it depends on this, on the scenario, but I always go back to the idea that I feel abstraction gives you a moment to just use your imagination, right? Because you're not seeing something that you can recognize, visually, and you're just seeing paint and color and drips and I think that's where every human tunes in with your inner self, you know, you have, you're not, nobody's telling you what it is, you don't have a previous reference to it. So, it's like a meditation, even if you are not meditating in front of a mural, if you're walking the stairs and you just saw a glimpse of it, I think it doesn't even pass your expectations and like I always say, abstraction is an expression of the heart. You know, it's very pure.
Stephanie Echeveste 38:27
Do you keep a sketchbook?
Sofia Maldonado 38:28
I do. But I usually- my sketchbook is more for writing, I would say. When I do the murals where I do sketches I've been using a lot of my iPad because I can just do a really quick sketch or I can put the photo of the space and then paint over it and I can see how it looks, you know, but more of my sketchbooks are more for writing and just ideas and just kind of letting go thoughts and that helps a lot, too. Most of my sketches for the past, I would say, five years have been more digital.
Stephanie Echeveste 39:06
Interesting. What do you use on your iPad? Are you using Procreate?
Sofia Maldonado 39:10
Procreate, yeah. For now it's been Procreate and it helps, but then I also have- usually when I go to residencies, I like to work a lot on wash, acrylic wash. And then that's another very intimate part of my creative process. When I want to start something new, I go back to the wash because it’s more, you know, it just, it tunes me in with a different side of me, you know, it goes back more to the root, to feeling not so digital. But then, you know, most of the sketches again, go back to the digital, because it's easier to send to the client and it's just easier to visualize the whole project when you can just drop in a photo of the site.
Stephanie Echeveste 39:59
Right. Do you send full renderings- if you’re commissioned for a project, do you send them a rendering? Say you've gone through the first sketch and the second sketch, when you say sketches are you rendering with color, or is it more of just the concept?
Sofia Maldonado 40:12
Yeah, no, it has color, and it’s as similar as it could be to the idea. But I always have a disclosure for all the clients that is like, it's abstraction and remember, this is a digital sketch, and I'll be working in painting. Very different, mediums, and in a very free medium, I mean, there's going to be some drips that I can’t really, probably, manage in the digital sketch. And there's always a conversation that happens when I'm painting with a wall with the piece that’s definitely not happening in the digital sketch. So there's a freedom and there's an understanding that the client needs to have when he or she encounters the final piece. And that's why while I paint, there's two visits, you know, to the site, but when it is a mural festival that you have, you're free to do whatever you want, usually, right? Unless you have a wall that is of a small business and they're very like, ‘no, I want to see this’, you know? But otherwise, in mural festivals, there’s more flexibility, you know, when you can- that's where I usually do my most anarchic kind of projects. For example, I did a really, really amazing, huge building in a festival called Beyond Walls in Lynn, Massachusetts and there I had freedom, but I know that the client had an agreement with the festival, I think they have to have like two years to leave the building like that, and eventually they have freedom to erase it and eventually they erase it. But, it's just nice, it's really nice to have those small projects where you can just be super free. And most of the time those free projects are the ones that nurture the more corporate projects because, you know, the client can have that project as an example. So everything starts to feed, it's like a chain you know, everything feeds itself, and some of the work say, like this one in studio, I could start a piece like that, and eventually this piece inspired a mural that I painted in Wynwood in Miami. So yeah, sometimes the murals and the abstractions in the space inspire the canvas work, and sometimes it's the other way around.
Stephanie Echeveste 42:54
That's interesting. So there's like a back and forth dialogue between work in your studio, work in physical space, and then work that might be commissioned because they've seen something else you've done.
Sofia Maldonado 43:04
Yeah.
Stephanie Echeveste 43:05
Are you a real estate developer looking for a unique amenity for your site? Get our free guide: 10 Tips for Commissioning a Site-Specific Artwork at our website, distillcreative.com. I want to ask you some questions about how you maintain relationships and also when you're collaborating, if you have any tips? On a video that I saw on YouTube for Sonic Feminista, you say “maintain very clear communication so I don't get run over” about how you maintain your leadership on a project. What other tips do you have for other artists or organizers who are leading and particularly if they are not a man leading in the space.
Sofia Maldonado 43:45
I would say as for collaborations just always have to be very clear where everybody stands. If it is a project that you're working and you're inviting people to collaborate over or if it's a collaboration. I've learned that the hard way. Sometimes you are working on a project, you invite people to collaborate, but then they think it’s a collaboration between both of you, and that's not the case. The case is like my project and you're collaborating with me, it just clears everything so people don't feel like they're being run over, you know, or they're being disrespected. You know, I think those lines have to be very clear. I'm not part of any collective. Usually, when I've done things are more like that, we're two artists and then we collaborate. I recently did a digital collaboration with a friend of mine called Radamés “Juni” Figueroa. He's a really well known artist, and we are really straight up about it. You know, we did this digital design together, and for example, if we're going to use that design for a different purpose, then we have to talk about that. And as for projects that are being run by women, I would say, sometimes as women we have to level ourselves to have better communication because sometimes women can be very competitive between themselves, you know, and we need more sisterhood, you know, we've got to create that because I feel we are in a man's world and we've been trained to always be defensive and always be, I don't know, not so supportive of each other. So I think that's something that we have to learn in order to help ourselves to keep growing, you know, not see the other person as somebody that can be a menace, you know, or a woman that you're empowering so we can both grow together or you know, evolve in the project. So yeah, definitely more sisterhood. Women, we need to take on roles that you could feel in the beginning intimated because there's a lot of men but, you know, it's like anything else you grow and you learn how to navigate in an all men world without having to not be yourself. I think clear communication and just not double think yourself, perhaps not be super bossy, be more, listen to people, you know. Step away a little bit from your ego and step away from the scenario like ‘I am a woman, I'm Latina, and this is why all this stuff happens and I have a wall and I'll never make it’. If you think like that in the morning, then yeah, of course you will never make it. So be positive, I think be positive and stay tuned with your nature.
Stephanie Echeveste 46:43
That's really good advice. I think especially with the sisterhood, not competition, particularly with mural artists. There are so few female identifying mural artists who get seen even though there might be a lot more out there, which is something that I think is really bizarre still, when I look at who's getting certain work or commissions or who's being celebrated. It's always- it's still kind of like ‘oh, and these are the women doing it’ instead of just having them within the fold.
Sofia Maldonado 47:11
Actually, talking about that, I'm going to send you a link of an organization based in Argentina, that a friend of mine, she's one of the founders, it’s called AMMurA. And they have a very interesting approach empowering women that are mural painters. It’s an organization that they're trying to open the market of either public or governmental commissions of women artists in Argentina, so they're very well organized, and I feel a movement like that can definitely make big changes. If we had similar movements like that, I think we can eventually do more of a change. I have another friend, Erin, she's a muralist in Los Angeles, and she started another group called When She Rises. It’s not only for mural painters, it’s more for female artists, and they do different festivals, different exhibitions. So I mean, definitely they're different women that have targeted and have created this space to give more of a voice to women. I'm all about those projects, but right now, the only project that I did in a similar scenario was Femtrap where I collaborated with younger painters and performers that were formerly my prior students. And so when we did these performances, they were invited to exhibit and they were invited also to do their performance as part of the collective Femtrap. But after that, I’ve been mainly focusing more on painting and more in my studio work. So I admire the women that, you know, have like these more formal projects that, you know, they dedicate time of their, of their life to make that more of a specific change. My perspective has always been more like when I teach I love to empower the women in my class, you know, I talk to them very straight. Maybe I'm a little bit more rigorous with them because I want them to, you know, have that hard skin when they get out there. Everybody I feel empowers the way they feel they can.
Stephanie Echeveste 49:32
Right, however they can jump in.
Sofia Maldonado 49:35
Right.
Stephanie Echeveste 49:35
Yeah. What's something you wish you had known when you had first started being an artist professionally because I know you've been doing this for a long time.
Sofia Maldonado 49:43
Yeah, I think I would have loved to have mastered more photography, being able to document my own projects, my own pieces, rather than having to have a third party because it would have saved me a lot of misunderstandings and I'd probably have a better hard drive with my earlier work, you know, if I have some works that have been lost through out hard drives and computers, you know, have more of that documentation more straight. But other than that, I think it's been a nice ride, and it's been a nice ride of learning experience throughout the years.
Stephanie Echeveste 50:25
What are some resources that have helped you along the way?
Sofia Maldonado 50:28
Well, I love reading biographies, I love documentaries of artists, I love anything, Art21, example, that they go to artists studios, and they ask them very specific questions and you get a glimpse of their work scenario, or maybe their daily, a day with the artist. I like those. Interviews, like I, when I teach, I tell my students if you want to get good, say at a specific subject and you feel you have found an artist that has been working in a similar pattern or similar thematic, you should just devour and throw with that artist, you know, just like eat it, everything that you can, and then you spit it out on your own terms, you know? Because on the subject of learning, you know, you can just try to understand that artist or that master or that subject that you want to develop, so you have to really focus on it. And if you can see documentaries, interviews, podcasts, whatever you can, just the more information you have on you, it's going to be the easiest to deconstruct, and then create a path for yourself.
Sofia Maldonado 51:01
Is there anything you're reading or watching or listening to right now that's been inspiring you?
Sofia Maldonado 51:50
Well, I recently read the Georgia O'Keeffe biography, and I loved it because she spent most of her life in isolation. You know, when she had her studio in New Mexico in the middle of the desert. Now we're here in the pandemic like, ‘oh, I have to be in my house’. And it's haven’t even passed like, I don't know, like a month, now we're more than a month, but imagine like she will go of course she's like, the beautiful scenario.
Stephanie Echeveste 52:19
Yeah.
Sofia Maldonado 52:19
But the idea of isolation, you know, sometimes- I'm really all about isolation. I love being on my own. I love having time in studio on my own, you know, even though maybe I'll listen to a podcast, but I love that time and I think if you're artists, most of the artists could tell you about that time where you're alone and things start to send all the, all those ideas and all the insecurities and securities and ideas, and it's a neat world. All of a sudden you're in your world, right? And I love that and then when I read her biography, and I'm like, of course no wonder her work is so solid. She was like, three months without seeing a human being in the middle of the desert. That's what everybody should do, you know, you should just go three months, every year to the middle of the desert and then you'll see your imagination and your psychic is gonna elevate. There's no way.
Stephanie Echeveste 52:20
I haven’t read that, I want to read it now.
Sofia Maldonado 53:23
You should. Yeah, I'll send you a screenshot of the- it’s a small book, because I don't like biographies that are like a Bible, you know.
Stephanie Echeveste 53:31
Like 500 pages.
Sofia Maldonado 53:33
I need a more reduced and fun, quick, you know, biography. Also, I like a lot looking for quotes. Like say, I've been reading a lot of Octavio Paz quotes, and they're so in tune with what is happening right now. So I love to find things from the past that relate to the actual moment and you're like, yeah, no wonder it's such, it's a cycle. You know, life is a cycle and then I think once you get that, that smooth ride, you know, when you understand that it's a cycle, okay. Sometimes you're feeling good, sometimes you're feeling bad and then you just don't go all the way in the depression. So it's just like, tomorrow probably feel better, you know? And I think that helps a lot especially when we are in this time that when we have this, we don't know where things are going. You know, we don't know when we'll be able to live a new normal scenario, when we're going to be able to travel, you know, even taking the subway, things like that. I think it's important to be more aware of how our mind works and how that affects our physical body which is what happens when you're in studio by yourself as an artist. You have all these thoughts, you have all this mind work and then eventually you just project it into a piece of art that has a concept and then you have to explain where that concept came from. So yeah, I will say though, sorry, my feedback to everybody in the podcast.
Stephanie Echeveste 55:06
Yeah, we'll definitely link to them in the show notes so other people can check them out.
Sofia Maldonado 55:11
Sure.
Stephanie Echeveste 55:12
Thank you so much for the interview today. Do you have anything else you want to share?
Sofia Maldonado 55:16
Right now I have a piece coming up in Boston, with TurningArt. But I have to figure out, you know, travel logistics, which I guess we're on hold for now. And I have another piece coming up in Puerto Rico that it was going to be a mural and now it's going to be a digital mural and that's very, very different. It's going to be a very new path and I am very excited to start working on it. So it will be some sort of like a wallpaper but rather than having a repeating pattern, it will be like a whole and it will be my first mural design on a digital platform and then it will be printed and mounted up. And I'm looking forward to that. One of the good things that the new normal has brought to me. Other than that, I've been working in my studio, the more digital drawings, and I might have a- I might release them on my birthday on July 17. But I'm still debating what I'm going to, how I'm going to show them and all that because they're more on the side of the female characters. So, let's see how that goes.
Stephanie Echeveste 56:22
Where can we find you online?
Sofia Maldonado 56:23
Well, I have an Instagram account, it’s sofiamaldo, and my website sofiamaldonado.com, and I also have a LinkedIn and Facebook, but you can find that throughout my website.
Stephanie Echeveste 56:40
Perfect.
Sofia Maldonado 56:39
Thank you so much for the interview.
Stephanie Echeveste 56:41
Yeah, thank you. This was so nice to talk.
Sofia Maldonado 56:45
Bye, thank you.
Stephanie Echeveste 56:46
Bye.
Stephanie Echeveste 56:49
Thanks for listening to this episode of First Coat. If you liked this podcast, please leave a review. Make sure to subscribe to the First Coat podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and follow us on Instagram @firstcoatpodcast or @distillcreative. First Coat is a production of my company Distill Creative. Check us out at distillcreative.com.