At Creatively, our mission is to champion creative talent and nurture a community that truly reflects the diversity across the full spectrum of the creative economy. As we mark Latinx Heritage Month, we’re proud to spotlight and celebrate the incredible creative contributions of the Latinx and Hispanic artists on Creatively, starting with Victoria Villasana.

If there’s a common thread unifying Villasana’s work, it’s the celebration of imperfection. Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Villasana is known for embroidering photographs, embellishing her images with three-dimensional threads that dangle beyond the frame. Villasana splits her time between Mexico and England, continuing to hone her craft through installations, commissions, and collaborations around the world.

Using her artwork to bridge the gap between tradition and the avant-garde, Villasana’s drive to create is borne of an insatiable interest in history, culture, and the interrelations of people in a fragmented, post-digital world. Weaving stories onto her images in her surreal, unfinished aesthetic, she is able to express the resiliency and creativity of the human spirit and accent specific features of her subjects which include Nina Simone, Marylin Monroe, Mister Rogers, and Yayoi Kusama, among many others.  

You can check out their latest projects on Creatively here.

What is the first creative project you remember?

I remember doing a collaboration with a Spanish photographer and a Spanish street artist in the streets of London.

Describe your aesthetic in three words.

Colourful, storytelling, patterns.

What was the most fulfilling collaboration you’ve worked on?

I worked with a charity in New Zealand where I traveled for a month doing workshops for different communities around the country. I even gave a workshop in a jail. I met really wonderful people and it was an amazing experience.

What’s one creative project that taught you something fundamental about yourself?

I think most projects teach me to be myself, to not take things too seriously, to have fun.

Do you think creativity is something you’re born with, or something you’re taught?

I believe we are all creative, but we are creative in different ways. Humans are constantly creating things, it is part of our nature, the problem is that we are creators and destroyers at the same time, and it is up to us if we use our energy for destruction or creation.

What’s the last dream you had?

Every dream I have had in the last five years has come true. This is not to say that my life has been perfect; I experienced a lot of difficulties and pain in between, but overall, many of my dreams have come true and I am very grateful for that.

One hundred years from now, what do you hope people write about your work?

I really don’t know, but I hope people see a symbiosis of the paradoxes in the human experience: history and the future, tradition and defiance, solitude and belonging, the material and the sacred.

Follow @villana on Creatively

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