Maruka Carvajal

My artwork is influenced by many years of exposure to multicultural environments, my love for art, my architectural background, and my passion for colors.

In my latest series, spaces are represented in a geometrical composition, using acrylic and other media such as charcoal, chalk and water soluble pencils to complete my works. Through the use and combination of contour lines, shapes and colors, I have been trying to express the wide array of sensations, temperature and colors that we face day to day when living in different parts of a city and at different parts of the day and seasons.

My intention is to represent the mood of different cities with a mixture of colors, shapes and lines resulting in serene or chaotic atmospheres. My paintings are about urban impressions. My theme has been devoted toward expressing life in urban settings. Feelings, sounds, colors and shapes that I kept in my memories of those special cities resulted in this abstract representation of urban spaces. I just want to represent the emotions that those places provoked in me.

Maruka was born in Santa Cruz, Bolivia where she lived for her first 17 years. She then moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where she graduated as an Architect in 1991. It was in this phase that she developed a deep appreciation and love for the visual arts. After that, she expanded her background and influences further from her exposure to multicultural settings during her years living in Singapore until 2001, when she moved to Virginia, her current residence.

Since 2009 she has been involved with the education programs at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, VA. Her earlier works include landscapes and still-life paintings. After that, she ventured into the abstract style, dedicating her latest works to urban themes. Lately, she has been driven by Marsha Staiger to explore further ways to express her art style. Maruka’s work has been displayed in various locations throughout the Washington, DC area.

In 2012 she has been selected to participate at the Visiting Artist Program at Torpedo Factory Art Center.