Today we’d like to introduce you to Zulma Vega.
Zulma, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I am a Colombian artist born in Quito, Ecuador. I have been very fortunate and have had the opportunity of living in different places in the world. It started when I was very young due to my fathers’ job, and as a child, I lived in Honduras and Panama. Later on, I spent one year in Grand Island, Nebraska as an exchange student and was very grateful to the people who welcomed me to their community and taught me many new things, including a new language. Early in life, like many kids, I very much enjoyed creating, drawing, painting. I remember my father having many unique color markers, and I would sneak into my parents’ bedroom and search in his bedside table drawers to grab them and use them to create “unique pieces of art.”
Social inequality and economic instability among other political turmoils were the norms. Although I was fortunate and had a stable upbringing, this was the opposite for my parents and most relatives. Studying Art was not the appropriate path to follow in order to “succeed” in life. I applied for a Fine Arts degree but decided to also apply to a “more stable” degree. I studied Marketing & Advertising and decided to pursue my career studying at night (from 6 pm to 10 pm) and Saturdays so that I could work during the day to gain experience. This empowered me to start my marketing career in the IT Business and allowed me to travel throughout Latin America and to live in Miami, Rio de Janeiro, and Amsterdam.
After starting my family and becoming a mother, my perspective of life and priorities shifted. I have a very supportive husband, and with his help, I started developing my creative side by illustrating a world of characters that my son would learn from and which became the main subject matter of my own Baby clothing line. Due to my husband’s job, we moved to Houston in 2013, and I enrolled in the Glassell School of Art. I have not stopped since. What started as a hobby, became my mid-life career change. It has helped me deal with many personal challenges. Some call it therapy, I call it my support, my stress reliever, my expression tool, my passion. Today, I am a founding member and secretary of Latin American Women Artists, Houston (LAWAH), and work from my studio in Silver Street Studios, an arts and events complex with 68 workspaces, which are home to over 80 artists and creative entrepreneurs.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do? Why? And what do you hope others will take away from your work?
My studio practice focus is 2D Painting. I use different techniques such as mixed media, fumage (marks made by the smoke of a candle) and collage, and I move from oil to acrylic painting depending on the message I want to convey. My paintings express the emotion of the moment, occasions that marked my life, the strongest changes. I get inspired by family images that remind me of special moments, and I transform them thinking about how the same situation may be common to others. I seek to awaken in the audience a feeling of something lived or familiar. I am currently studying the Family Systems Theory, and I seek to understand through it our actions, why we make the decisions we make or fail to make. Our passive or active reaction to life, our changes. I paint what I understand, what I feel. The ultimate goal: to have a personal transformation that allows me to achieve what many of us want, to be happy, to leave a positive mark in the world, to share my message to transform ourselves as a whole and offer a more subtle transition to our future generations. Painting is my form of expression, but as I grow as an artist, I am constantly searching for different results, experimenting with new techniques and new contents. From geometric objects to subtle organic and figurative images, my work reflects what I am, a person in constant growth and change.
I want people of any age to stop and look at my paintings, relate to them and awake emotions in them. I want people to spend some minutes of their lives thinking how these images and colors interact to convey a message. A message that they can make up in their heads based on their own experiences.
Do current events, local or global, affect your work and what you are focused on?
Artists are very sensible people. I cannot talk for all of us, but I would say most everything that happens in the world today and always, has affected artists’ work in some way. We all have something to say, and that is why we turn to different ways of art expression to release emotions and thoughts. I personally always have something to say. I believe the role of artists have evolved and now more than ever, we have more freedom of expression and with today’s technology, we can share our artwork with everyone through the use of internet or social media.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
People can see my work by visiting my art studio at Silver Street Studios, Studio 205. (2000 Edwards Street, Houston, TX 77007). We are open every Second Saturday of the month from 12 to 5 pm. You can also see my artwork by visiting my website www.zulmavega.com or my Instagram account @zulmavegaart. My artwork has also been selected by Latino Art Now, a four-month citywide celebration that explores and celebrates local and national Latino and Latin American artists and the artwork selected together with other Latino artists’ work will be featured at LAN Billboards located throughout the city of Houston. As part of this event, I will be exhibiting at the coming Group Exhibition Color Outside the Lines: Latino Art Now! That will take place from March 24th to May 19th, 2019 at The George Memorial Library in Richmond, Texas. You can also find more information at our Latin American Women Artists, Houston at www.lawah.net.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2000 Edwards Street. Studio 205
Houston, TX 77007 - Website: www.zulmavega.com
- Email: zvega@mac.com
- Instagram: @zulmavegaart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZulmaVegaArt
- Twitter: @zulmavegaart
- Other: www.lawah.net
Image Credit:
Black & White Photo taken by Photographer Angela Montani @angemphoto
Studio photo with little girl by Pam Griffin
Other images, Zulma Vega
Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
