Maru Cadena
Maru Cadena is a visual and performance artist whose practice explores the relationship between the body, self-image, and different states of mind. Working with recyclable materials, found objects, ready-mades, and painting, she creates colourful, playful works that move between abstraction and figuration.
Her practice is rooted in everyday life and personal experience, often transforming ordinary materials into expressive forms. Her colour palette begins with primary colours before evolving into warmer tones, reflecting the shifting emotional and psychological states explored throughout her work.
Through a process that can be both controlled and erratic, Cadena embraces simplicity, playfulness, and experimentation, creating works that invite audiences to connect with the shared experiences of being human.
“The materials choose me, and I play with them until it feels right.” — Maru Cadena
Can you introduce yourself and your artistic practice? How would you describe the work you create?
I'm a visual artist as well as a performance artist. My work is an insight into my body self-image and my mind states. My pieces are colourful, naive, and playful.
The Sick Woman
Oil pastels
80.5 × 44.5 cm
$1,000
What ideas, experiences or themes most influence your work?
The work of artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Louise Bourgeois, Lygia Clark, and Frida Kahlo influenced me in different ways. I created through a reflexive process that includes writing and drawing. Daily life is my inspiration. Family and relationships are common themes in my art.
Tell us about one artwork that feels especially important to you and the story behind it.
White Witness talks about the road between depressive and manic states. The rabbit came out from Alice in Wonderland and he is my friend as well as a witness of my emotional phases. It's a readymade built with a package and painted through all the surface. It was done after I experienced a mental crisis. It acts as a reminder of the idea that everything passes by.
White Witness
Mixed media: readymade, acrylic painting
26 × 35 × 10 cm (if close)
$500
What does your creative process usually look like—from the first idea to the finished piece?
Usually, it starts with writing and then, depending if it's a readymade or a painting, the materials choose me and I play with them until it feels right. With performance art, it's a more physical process and involves wigs, clothes, and dialogues.
Boundaries
Etching
20 × 27 cm
$400
What has creating art taught you about yourself that you don't think you would have discovered otherwise?
I couldn’t be anything else but an artist. I’m nothing without art. Art has taught me things about myself that I wouldn’t have known otherwise. It taught me that I am resilient. I can recycle my dark emotions and thoughts and transform them into something bright and colourful.
No matter how eternal and infinite my shadow may seem to be, it’s going to pass, as everything in life passes by.
To understand this idea better, you can listen to Juan Manuel Serrat’s song “Caminante” — “Todo pasa y todo queda” (1969).
No matter how deep I dive into myself, or how lost I feel at some point, I’ll find new doors, windows and paths — ones more joyful, tender and loving. Through art, I can express myself in the whole spectrum, as light does through a drop of rain
What does a successful artwork mean to you?
A successful artwork is not only being able to express myself through art from an aesthetic point of view, but also being able to share it with spectators who are willing to let it into their experiences and minds.
More important than whether people like it or not is the fact that they can be seen by others. The economic reward that may come from exhibiting my artwork might come or not, so it is not reliable.
Is there something you wish people understood about you or your work that isn't always obvious at first glance?
I want the public to take the time to experience my work, not only by looking at it from the aesthetic side, but by allowing the symbols embedded in the details to reach their inner being.
Things are not always the way they appear to be, but a whole formed by different elements: materials, technique, colours, shape, volume, textures, sound, space, time, language, concepts, ideas, thoughts and characters — people, animals or things.
Allow yourself to be curious, playful, naïve and sometimes quite silly, with a pinch of humour. Explore your own interpretation of the work before you read my bio or information about the piece.
What are you currently working towards, and what would you like audiences to take away from your art?
I look forward to continuing to explore myself through art and being able to connect profoundly with the audience. I'm working on some art pieces that include words, humour, and found objects. I want to show that we humans are all the same in different shapes and levels of experiences. We all have flesh and blood.
Stuff
Mixed media: readymade, oil painting, acrylic painting, plastic and balsa wood
20 × 20 cm
$300
