Sofia Maldonado

Sofia Maldonado’s murals and environmental installations draw on contemporary youth culture and the cultural legacies of her Cuban mother and her Puerto Rican father. When making public art, which is Maldonado’s preference, she involves neighborhood skaters, youth and other residents, and does her best to get to know the community. 

At the start of her most recent mural project, in a Puerto Rican neighborhood in Connecticut, she went to the local nail salon to have her nails done and learned about the tensions that were plaguing the community. Because the building she’d been offered as a mural site is a historic one, she affixed large wooden female figures to the façade and asked the nail salon workers to “do” their nails and make-up, along with their accessories. While Sofia is interested in the aesthetic contributions of her work to the neighborhood, she also seeks to communicate the truth of lived experience on the blocks where she paints.

Maldonado’s VSC residency is sponsored by the Reed Foundation’s fellowship program for Caribbean artists of outstanding talent.  During her stay she’s been preparing for a mural project about the life, political struggles and music of Nigerian musician Fela Ransome-Kuti. At the moment, sketches of his 26 wives look out at her from her studio wall, transforming even her pristine VSC studio in to a public place.  Sofia has studied art at the Escuela de Artes Plasticas in San Juan, and at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute where she received her MFA. Both inside and outside of the university she has challenged curators to see the walls and spaces external to the galleries as fair game. When invited to show work inside of these spaces, she’s done murals on the cement stairways, back alley walls, even an abandoned swimming pool.

While at VSC, Maldonado has also found the time to check out the Johnson Skate Park and to share her work with local middle school and high school students through VSC’s Learning in Art & Culture Program. During a mural workshop she held in her studio for high school seniors from Green Mountain Technical and Career Center she’s emphasized how her work combines hip hop stylin’, community activism and the preservation of cultural history. 

 
photo courtesy of Howard Romero