Ilse Zúñiga

During weekends at her grandparents’ house, Ilse Zúñiga noticed the decor, specifically the artwork. These images of Mexican indigenous people carrying beautiful baskets of fruits and seeds were prints of Diego Rivera’s paintings. Zúñiga’s was surrounded by even more art at her aunt’s house, who collected art and being there felt like playing inside a museum. Although she never spoke to her parents about how seeing paintings made her feel, she would lose, and ultimately find, herself in art. While there was no singular moment of artistic enlightenment, growing up with family members who knew, collected, and appreciated art provided a natural pathway for a young Ilse Zúñiga to fall in love with art.

Ilse Zúñiga grew up loving to draw with a deep appreciation of colors, but never thought of art as a career. In fact, she was once terrified of painting and thought of a blank canvas as a nightmare. One day, however, while studying for a marketing degree, Zúñiga took an art history class and life suddenly began to take on a different light. When learning about the masters, Zúñiga met the artwork of Monet. It was then that her hands began to itch to create paintings of her own. Later, after a trip to Italy and seeing countless wonders, it was Botticelli’s “Primavera” that reaffirmed Zúñiga’s longing to paint not in an academic way, but with an intense love of oil painting and realism. While Zúñiga has been inspired by masters from the past, her mentor is Francisco Vazquez, a renowned Mexican painter who helped her overcome fears of painting and motivated her to dream of a career in the art world.

Today, Ilse Zúñiga’s creative process is rooted in her life. She paints exclusively with oils and puts down on canvas what she lives and dreams, giving each work of realism a touch of her own experience, a glimpse of a dream, or a touch of her desire and longing. Zúñiga says that she couldn’t be the artist she is without the influence of Claude Monet and his beautiful pastel colors and lilies frozen in time, but the expressionism of Guillermo Lorca continues to be her greatest inspiration. Lorca still motivates Ilse Zúñiga to be more expressive and to capture on canvas what lies deep within her heart.

Accomplishments

Zúñiga recently participated in the international market for the first time at the Spectrum fair in Miami and came very close to selling out. Thanks to that participation, she had the opportunity to send some of her work to the Wit Gallery. Additionally, Zúñiga regularly participates in exhibitions throughout Mexico, the last one being “Artfest” in Queretaro, where her artwork sold out.