Por Chema Noriega. Fotos Yoshi Travel, Eddgar Arcane y Gabriel McCormick
Humans are a conglomerate of realities, a product of the discourses to which we are exposed on a daily basis. In the construction of our identity, we choose to personify those values and ideas that best match our subjectivity, even if this means opposing a centuries-old cultural system and risking our lives in the process. This is the reality of women in our time, a struggle to end the avalanche of tacit and structural violence which, despite the proliferation of actions and discourses in favour of gender equality, seems to be increasing in direct proportion to the number of voices against them. In this sense, art is seen as an ideal means of denouncing the patriarchal patterns that, impregnated in our culture, degrade, minimize and destroy the integrity of millions of people who, simply because they are women, suffer the vicissitudes of an absurd hegemony.
Art and urban art, in particular, not only denounce situations, but also offer alternatives, courses of action that make it possible to eradicate a problem or gradually transform a belief system, an idea or a simple behaviour. To this end, art should not be limited to a specific sector of the population. Paola Delfín, originally from Mexico City, is a contemporary artist whose work explores the beauty and sensibility that surround the female figure. Highly influenced by the techniques of illustration, Paola manages to incorporate elements of femininity, creating dynamic contrasts that try to give her work its own life. Her philosophy is that art must be accessible everywhere, “my passion is to create, to be able to tell a story with my hands through images that involve the spectator in the story”, says Paola herself for her biography on the Widewalls platform, emphasizing the importance of artistic manifestations jumping from the galleries to the streets in an attempt to make the medium more accessible.
Paola Delfin’s approach to art came at a very early age. As a child she always saw in her pencil and paper the possibility of visualizing her reality through drawing. In her mission to take her art to all possible places, Paola has experimented with different techniques and formats to catalyze her ideas and emotions, finding in muralism the ideal means to convey her message to society, away from the exclusivity that usually involves the artistic medium, to promote a true interaction between the audience and the artistic work, which invites reflection and encourages action.
Paola has managed to take her work to streets and galleries all over the world, countries such as Germany, Argentina, Colombia and Spain, have witnessed how the fluidity of her strokes manages to appropriate large walls to make visible the strength of her work.
Paola Delfin is currently painting on the dome of Focault’s pendulum for SeaWalls: Water is One, a new edition of the Pangeaseed Foundation’s SeaWalls: Artists for Oceans program, produced by Nueve Arte Urbano.
You can learn more about Paola’s work at:
https://www.instagram.com/paola_delfin/?hl=es-la
https://www.facebook.com/paoladelfinmx/