Artwork Title: “2” Original
Artist: Ivette Salom
 
Medium: Watercolor, ink, pencil
Dimensions: 5 x 7 inches
 
My cultural background has been a source of inspiration in my artwork. I was born in Bogotá, Colombia, into a family of Lebanese descent. Being immersed during most of life in Latin American and Middle Eastern cultures, I have always had to move among different languages, traditions, and sensibilities. This has made me interested in the tension between identity and cosmopolitanism and drawn me to question the singularity and universality of human experience. From my earliest experiences with color and texture in my grandparents’ textiles store to my later exposure to Latin American artistic genres such as Magical Realism and Tropicalia, I have moved through distinct spaces of feeling and aesthetics that have made my art an ongoing exercise of bricolage.
 
I had the opportunity to live in Florence, Italy, and New York, where I studied visual arts (at Accademia Cappiello and Parsons School of Design) and worked as an illustrator in the publishing world and fashion industries. When I moved back to Colombia, I continued with my work as a painter and illustrator, publishing several books in Spanish. I moved back to the US and completed an MFA between 2009 and 2013 at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
 
Copyright 2025 Ivette Salom