Jill Maytorena Layers Wallpaper, Upholstery Fabric, and Pastels in Portraits of Women She Knows
Jill Maytorena, an artist from California, crafts textured portraits of women by combining pastels, screen-printed paper, embroidery, feathers, and upholstery fabrics on aluminum composite panels. Her mixed-media approach, showcased by My Modern Met, explores themes of memory and identity, beginning with sturdy panels layered with diverse materials. Drawing inspiration from her childhood surrounded by floral wallpaper and her experiences in England and the U.S., she finds motifs in Los Angeles's Garment District. Her pieces, such as 'Adornment,' 'Doll House,' and 'Aurora Lunula,' portray real women from her life, capturing them in dynamic poses. Maytorena emphasizes texture with screen-printed papers and utilizes soft pastels, striving for visual harmony amid chaos. My Modern Met has been granted permission to display her photographs.
Key facts
- Jill Maytorena is a California-based mixed-media artist who creates portraits of women she knows.
- Her materials include pastels, screen-printed paper, embroidery, feathers, patterned upholstery fabric, and wallpaper fragments.
- Every work begins with an aluminum composite panel as the support.
- She lived in both England and the United States, exposures she credits with shaping her visual vocabulary.
- She sources motifs from junk drawers and eclectic fabrics from Los Angeles's Garment District.
- Screen-printed papers are her favorite material because the raised ink creates drawable texture.
- Soft pastels are her most-used medium, along with harder pastels and pastel pencils.
- Works cited include 'Adornment,' 'Doll House,' 'In the House of Ornament,' 'Persimmon,' 'Weave Me Through a Dream,' 'Black Dress in Red,' 'Inflorescence,' and 'Aurora Lunula.'
Entities
Artists
- Jill Maytorena
- Kate Tova
- Katherine Heigl
- Esther Kim
Institutions
- My Modern Met
Locations
- California
- United States
- England
- Los Angeles
- Garment District