Maria Paula Suarez
Maria Paula Suarez is a Colombian artist currently based in New York City. With a BA in Visual Arts from Universidad Javeriana with an emphasis on plastic-based mediums and certified as an illustrator by the School of Visual Arts in New York, she is currently exploring the concept of resilience through mediums like coloured pencil illustration and embroidery on paper. She considers herself a multidisciplinary artist and believes art to be a powerful tool capable of providing new forms of self-knowledge and reflection.
If you are interested in her work, please visit her website and Instagram.
About:
Maria Paula Suarez was born in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. Encouraged by her mother’s artistic nature, she was introduced to various plastic mediums such as pottery, craft art, and sculpture from a very young age. She obtained her BA in Visual Arts at Universidad Javeriana, where she further explored plastic as a medium. A certified illustrator by the School of Visual Art in New York, she has also completed a pedagogical course at Harvard’s Online University in learning and leadership. She now lives in New York City, where she is currently pursuing an MA in Art Business from Sotheby’s Institute of Art.
Maria Paula Suarez, Viceversa, 2020. Pencil colours and embroidery on paper, 450 x 400 mm.
Suarez’s works are categorized by her embroidered illustrations created with strong, vibrant colours. Inspired by her everyday life and her own healing path, she explores these mediums while creating an artwork or a series to build a bridge between the physical work and the idea that motivated it. Her works create a ‘blissful sense of completeness’ as for her, a thread is associated with the power of healing and the bold, bright colours illustrate the state of happiness. In her own words, “when we sew, we are healing, unifying, and repairing.”
Maria Paula Suarez, Profundo, 2022. Embroidery on paper, 220 x 280 mm.
Suarez is largely influenced by Beatriz Gonzalez, also a Colombian artist, Ed Ruscha and Georgia O’Keeffe, as well as by her own experiences. She translates her thoughts, desires, and emotions to art, wanting to make an impact on a person’s life through her images.
Maria Paula Suarez, Make Love, Have love, give love, 2021. Embroidery on wax paper, 470 x 700 mm.
Thematically, Suarez’s work reflects on resilience, which she defines as “the ability to reinvent ourselves and overcome traumatic moments in our lives.” She believes that art can be applied to everyday life, as it generates models that provide new forms of self-knowledge and reflection. Her most recent work is a response to her research on this topic and is categorized into three stages: pain, self-love, and healing. Pain as the breaking point, healing as the process, and self-love as the result. She named this method ‘cyclical resilience,’ as we constantly perform this process in our passage through the world. Nature is the best example of this. By exploring images that respond to the infinite possibilities of understanding these cycles, plants and language are a recurring theme in her work. Exploring these themes led her to the realisation of how people connect with art through empathy.
Maria Paula Suarez, OK, 2021. Embroidery on wax paper, 260 x 220 mm.
Suarez’s most recent series titled 60 meses en pausa active was motivated by the premise that the approximate life span of an orchid is three to seven years. The series is composed of two pieces, both 50 x 60 cm, depicting abstract-coloured flowers. The embroidery overflows from the image frame, leaving pieces of thread suspended in the air. For this series, she observed different orchid flowers and created a “new abstract species” while maintaining original characteristics such as the colour and movement of the petals.
Maria Paula Suarez, Profundo, 2021. Embroidery on paper, 220 x 280 mm.
Suarez is currently working on two new projects that are still in process as she polishes their concepts through further research. In Inside Out, she is sewing the image of human hearts in dried rose petals, a process that requires patience and long hours to manage the details. Additionally, Profundo is an eight-piece lattice of images depicting abstract flowers embroidered on paper but without illustration. At this point, in terms of the physical production, she has completed the first part of each piece. On behalf of MADE IN BED, we eagerly await the final works and can’t wait to see what Suarez does next.
Selected Exhibitions
2021
Monte abierto. Galería Otros 360. Bogotá, Colombia
Scope fair, see me gallery - Booth G-11, Miami Beach, Florida.
Art takes 21, Ki Smith Gallery, Nueva York, USA.
2020
Create, inspire, connect. Big Arts Sanibel, Florida
Arcot. Instituto Cervantes. Tokio, Japan.
Circuito artemoda. Em2center. Bogotá, Colombia.
Arte en cuarentena. Arte y conexión. Bogotá, Colombia
Stella Psarouli
Contributing Writer, MADE IN BED