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.
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