Camila Diaz is a visual artist who illustrates personal and cultural memories. She works in a multi-media practice with acrylics, gouache, colored pencil, and graphite on paper. Camila aims to encompass the feeling of warmth and nostalgia, having her culture of East Los Angeles and El Salvador influence her art. She is a first-generation Salvadoran-American, with her parents moving to America in the 1980s. In a way, Camila lives in a quaint home of El Salvador while her postal zip code belongs to Los Angeles County.
Camila is inspired by her family, nature, architecture, graphic novels, her home full of artesanias and the cotton-candy sunsets of California. Camila has studied in Santa Monica College and Pasadena City College as a transfer student. She is currently an undergraduate for a BFA in Illustration at Otis College of Art and Design. She continues exploring with Fiber Arts, Book Arts, and Zine Making.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I dig through the shoebox of memories in my heart and find that art has always been at the root of it all. Art found in El Salvador and Los Angeles provides a plethora of inspiration, and I strive to find a balance between them because that is where I exist. I pay homage to my heritage in elegant and colorful narrative pieces, with bright colors of acrylic and gouache, and textured motifs made with colored pencils. My photo-realistic art style is essential to how I depict the human experience of nostalgia and warmth and the objects that we may find trivial, but can’t bear to part with. My body of work aims to display the curious heart of an art enthusiast and honor the Hispanic aspects of my life.
