ABOUT

Artist · Activist · Educator

I paint and stitch my way back to myself.

I fell in love with painting at 17, a quiet way to hold an anxiety I had no words for yet. It took years, a few countries, motherhood, and a long road back to my own wellbeing before oil finally met thread in my hands. I make work from the things women are so often asked to carry quietly: care, mental health, motherhood, and the crafts long dismissed as women’s work. I paint and stitch my way back to my body, my roots, and the women who came before me, and I hold space for the ones still finding their voice. Art as encounter, attention, and trace.

20+

Exhibitions

5

Countries

4

Awards & honours

5

Publications

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is a bridge back to my body, my roots, and the women who came before me. Oil meets thread, and mending becomes belonging.

Read the full statement

QUITO → OSLO

The Journey

Five countries. Many beginnings. A practice that traces the way home. Turn each card to read its story.

Quito1981 · ECUADOR
1981 · ECUADORQuitoI was born in Quito, at the foot of the Andes. My grandmother was a seamstress; her love came stitched into the clothes she made. I hold only the memory of my last ten years there, and it fades a little more each year, so I paint my way back to it in oil and thread.
New JerseyAGE 15 · USA
AGE 15 · USANew JerseyAt fifteen I became an undocumented immigrant. I lived a double life: my family on one side, and the fake papers that let me go to school and work on the other. A six-year battle in immigration court I eventually won, but migration came at a high price: my mental health.
The first brushAGE 17
AGE 17The first brushI fell in love with painting at seventeen. It soothed an anxiety I was only beginning to understand, after my first panic attack during a Sunday service at the Latin church in Union City. Art became the outlet I did not know I needed.
BostonA WIDER WORLD · USA
A WIDER WORLD · USABostonAt twenty-one I won my case and got my life back. The United States had taken my freedom, but it handed me a vast, diverse world in return, and an education I never expected. I studied economics in Boston, a long way from a paintbrush.
LondonENGLAND · FREEDOM
ENGLAND · FREEDOMLondonEngland was a move I chose, and it gave me back the freedom the US had taken. I trained in law and built a life there. What it quietly took was a little of my innocence, but I left lighter than I arrived.
OsloNORWAY · FOR THEM
NORWAY · FOR THEMOsloI came to Oslo for family and stayed for my three girls, to give them the childhood I wanted for them. Norway also took my safety blanket: here, for the first time, I understood the world saw me as a brown woman. So I learned to use my voice.
The breakdown2020 · TURNING POINT
2020 · TURNING POINTThe breakdownMothering in a villageless world broke me. In 2020 came a full breakdown, and the turning point. I could not go back to my old ways; I had to learn everything from scratch and build a village around myself. Almost six years on, that rebuilding is who I am.
The residencies2023 – 2025 · TIME AWAY
2023 – 2025 · TIME AWAYThe residenciesAfter the breakdown I learned to give myself time away. Venice with the European Cultural Academy in 2023. NG Art Creative Residency in Maussane in 2024, then a self-guided residency through Paris and Provence in 2025. Uninterrupted days to paint, read and breathe. I came home with more of myself each time.
Sofonisba AtelierNOW
NOWSofonisba AtelierI came back to painting after more than a decade, by accident, with a self-portrait and a borrowed mirror. Now I work in oil and thread, in a studio named after Sofonisba Anguissola. I make art because, technically, I am not allowed to. I'm a rebel.
Beginning againTODAY
TODAYBeginning againA separation reshaped everything once more. The hardest kind of formative, and the strongest. I am building my life again, this time on my own terms. What I carry that no suitcase could hold: bravery.

  • Becoming

I learned from the women before me

There was no straight path. I never trained the traditional way; I taught myself, through research, through Frances Borzello’s books, through Sofonisba Anguissola and the women artists history tried to forget. My familiy heritiage. Women who continue to inspire me every day. I named my atelier after one of them. They taught me I could be whoever I wanted to be.

Paulina Ree, first self-portrait, 2021

I found my way by making

I came back to painting with an accidental self-portrait and a borrowed mirror. I learned when a work is finished from the collector Sonia Borel: not perfection, but capturing what I came to capture. A painting a day taught me to say what I needed, and move on.

Time, space, and distance

Residencies gave me what motherhood rarely does: uninterrupted time. In France and in Venice I could disappear into the work and come back fuller. Some of these rooms abroad shaped me as much as any classroom.

Press & collaborations

LOOKBOOK

A year, gathered into a book

Each one holds a single year in the studio, a few of the works that mattered most, and a glimpse into my practice. Tap a cover to open and flip through it.

Lookbook 2025

Lookbook 2024

Lookbook 2023

Lookbook 2022

Request the lookbook

GOOD TO KNOW

A few honest answers

How did you become an artist?

Where did you train?

Why oil and thread?

Who is in the room when you work?

Why speak so openly about mental wellbeing?

Can I buy or commission a painting?

Can I visit your studio in Oslo?

Where are you from, and where are you based?

Where can I see your work?