Today we’d like to introduce you to Georgina Padilla.
Georgina, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I was born in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico and then we , my dad, mom, and older sister, moved to Mexico City where i spent my childhood until we relocated to Texas in 2014. I base a lot of my artwork about my struggle with my Mexican-American identity, being privileged enough to have acquired a dual citizenship back in October of 2021 at the age of 20.
When i was a girl my mom would make arts and crafts with me and my sister, she introduced us to all sorts of art making like paper mache, painting, sculpting, you name it, as a way to keep us entertained; as part of the school I went to in Mexico City, CEL (centro escolar del lago) we were assigned to visit a lot of museums and archeological sites like the pyramids, Tenochtitlan (capital of the Aztec empire), or “el centro de la ciudad” (the city’s center) and my mom would take us as excursions; I so vividly remember seeing great artists artworks, though I wasn’t able to appreciate them as much as I would now as an adult, like Frida Kahlo’s and Diego Rivera’s. My sister started drawing before I did, and as the youngest of the two, I look up to her and was inspired to draw just like her, and I never stopped.
Art is one of those things I believe i was born to do, I was never great at any other subject in school but I was always ready to pick up a pencil and draw, it was always my favorite class in primary school.
Moving to Texas was probably one of the hardest experiences of my life, I was young and didn’t know how to handle the culture shock that it was, all my friends and family stayed in Mexico and even though I was with my parents and sister here, I still felt alone; i went from being an extroverted kid to probably the most introverted person in my classes. Like any other kid in the modern world I turned to social media where i took interest in different shows and bands, that’s around the time my art started to pick up, it was a way for me to, even though it was all fan-art, express myself.
In just two years after moving, i went on to high school where I started experimenting with different mediums like acrylic, watercolor, and for the first time, oils. I went to Northwest High School over in Justin, and went through the AMAT path, that is basically for kids who want to go on to be graphic designers, video game/ software design, art, etc, and though i was taking all sorts of classes like photography, and media (adobe programs based), I never took an art class because it just didnt fit in my schedule. I stayed close with an art teacher that helped me go to a V.A.S.E competition where i was told my art was not good, I didn’t even make the first round, and it was such a let down but I didn’t let it stop me from pursuing art as a career. I’m still grateful for the opportunity, it gave me tougher skin.
I identified self taught until i attended UNT in the fall of 2020, where I majored in Studio Art with a concentration in Drawing & Painting and minored in Art History. Though I wasn’t taught a lot of the basics you need for painting (i know, crazy) because the curriculum kept changing due to the pandemic, I did have some extraordinary professors; Elaine Pawlowicz, Jamison LeBlanc, Matt Bourbon, Christian Fagerlund, and Brian Scott Campbell, who helped me develop my portfolio, with either techniques, how to think deeper, how to depict ideas better, or just with feedback on critiques. Figure Drawing classes as well as Ceramic courses, helped me think more about ideas in a 3 dimensional way, wether that is how to apply it technically on a painting, or just conceptually; they also helped with my overall technique, i pride myself in painting hands, they are so proportional!
After graduation, I kind of hit a wall, after busting out a whole 2×2 ft painting every two weeks with a new or developing concept, my brain is fried, and though I still have ideas and drafts going on a sketchbook, im allowing myself to enjoy my well deserved rest after developing such a wide (at least for me) portfolio where I was able to curate and install my own art show in the UNT’s Union Gallery on my last semester of college, it was one of the proudest moment’s of my career and I owe it all to my family, professors, and my best friend and ex-roomate(sadly) who stayed up countless nights listening to me go through it all.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I definitely think it hasn’t been the smoothest of roads, considering all the things I’ve gone through in my personal life that have given me so much painting material haha wether that is boy problems, friend’s drama, school life and what-not, not to even mention the whole transition of moving countries at a young age. And even then I consider myself really lucky and privileged to not have had the struggle that so many people go through every day in search of a better life. It’s one of the things I still consider difficult to talk about because it a sensitive subject that I dont know how to approach from my position in my practice but it is definitely a conversation i look forward to having with audiences through my artwork, so stay tuned.
Medium-wise I think I struggled with trying to find what I felt more in-tune with, I went through a lot of watercolor palettes because I applied it on so thick, until I found gouache, my holy grail. I also really enjoy painting with oil but what’s difficult about it now that I don’t have access to a studio like at UNT is having a well ventilated area and flammable trash cans; people don’t realize how fragile oil really is, it freaks me out.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Though I like working in different mediums like 3d sculpting, drawing, digital, or ceramics, my thing is painting, it’s where I feel most like myself. I like to think that that’s what I’m known for, maybe also for painting crazy lookin things with some colorful imagery, I’ve gotten a lot of comments and laughs at my chicken painting “my mother’s daughter”, which I completely understand.
So far i am most proud of the portfolio I built through my undergrad, i think it’s really solid and “finished”, as well as my solo show, it felt otherworldly.
I would say that what sets me apart from others is the imagery I use, I like creating artwork that isn’t Davinci code levels of difficulty in trying to figure out the meaning, since i know exactly what i am communicating to others, i want people to just get that from my paintings; and what I got from critique is that even if I dont share the meaning right away, people where still able to get to the answer. I also don’t mind people having their different interpretations of my work, I think that one of the gifts of art is that it can be a personal experience with each individual person where they can identify with a piece through their own experiences and views of the world.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
In the next 5-10 years I see Artificial Intelligence really taking a whole section of art for itself, as sad as it is from my point of view, it really is taking off nowadays that it’s become a more accessible tool for people to immerse themselves, maybe for the first time into “creating” art.
Hopefully traditional artists will start taking it back now that I also see a rise in backlash from fine artists against the use of AI. Personally i refuse to use any AI generated program in my creative process, not only because of the harm it’s causing the environment but because of the harm it’s causing to the art community; people find it easier to just type in their prompts rather than commissioning an artist, i fear we’ll lose the humanity that makes art so unique and beautiful.
Take this as your sign to create something with your hands.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://georgiapadilla24.wixsite.com/georgina-padilla
- Instagram: georginapadillart
- Other: georgina_padillarin@outlook.com
Image Credits
Baylee Neff
Tyler Shipes
