Art jewelry co-created by an artist and illustrator of fantastic scenes

Catalina Estrada´s work is of outstanding beauty. Contemplate the art jewelry made by her brother, Nicolas Estrada – also featured here, using Catalina´s breathtaking illustrations.

Nicolas says: “This jewelry collection includes romantic and delicate pieces. It is a collection that has been designed in partnership with Catalina Estrada, my sister. In these pieces I have integrated her beautiful illustrations in order to showcase her ideal world”.

Rich with icons and idols, Catalina’s illustrations have captivated the international design community.

Her work has appeared in Grafik magazine and lots of other international best-selling magazines.

This is her Two Parrots necklace, left.

Her illustrations have been used in a limited edition range of Coca-Cola bottles, album artwork for a Sony solo artist, a book cover for Oxford University Press and requests from various fashion brands such as Custo in Spain, Anunciacao in Brazil and Paul Smith in the UK.

Folkloric patterns and icons are Catalina’s inspiration

When she was a little girl her father worked for big Japanese companies and used to travel allot to Japan. He used to bring back home to his little girl lots of gifts such as tiny, richly illustrated books, cards and other traditional Japanese souvenirs.

Catalina feeds her creativity from these emotionally charged childhood memories.

It reminds me of a little embroidered rose that my father always had stuck on an event ID from a yearly Congress he used to attend. Every time he arrived from this event, getting hold of this little rose was for me heaven! A couple of years ago while organizing some old drawers in my parent´s house, I found it glued to a picture, and I was again thrilled! 20+ years afterwards and I still had a rush of emotion!

A talent rising from Colombia and landing in Barcelona

She says that “I was a little bit tired of graphic design and the clients. It´s not as nice when you work for other people, especially in Colombia where there is almost never the budget that you wish for your project”.

This is her How Windy! necklace to the right.

Catalina moved first to Paris and then arrived to Barcelona where she pursued an illustration course and joined a public art school of fine arts. Catalina was starting drawing for her illustrations and, in her own words:

“I was feeling comfortable in the city, was doing what I liked and decided to keep on going”.

But don´t think that everything was prefect.

At the time, galleries favored abstract work over the more figurative work of Catalina´s art.

She had to find something to make a living… and Barcelona´s DJ scene came to the rescue.

“I was lucky to start getting projects for night clubs, I don’t listen to DJs that frequently, but it was a graphic world that allowed me to create explosions of colors. It was great because it meant I could do illustration mixed with graphic design, which is what I really like”.

Finding her unique graphic language

“I think that work was the biggest step for me because I started creating my own graphic language. When you work for a client, and your graphic language is not very developed, then you´ll always end up doing what the client wants. You never find out what you really want.

In these projects, I could do what I wanted and it was great. I was doing art through illustration, on the computer, and that was it. I was very happy with the results”.

Catalina has the power to talk to the viewers´ heart and grab their attention.

And when they leave the exhibition, whenever they close their eyes, those shiny colors and curly shapes are still glowing in their mind.

Look at this beautiful owl in her Bad Bird necklace.

Marketing her singular approach to artistic illustration

Her inspiration and love of nature, equally loved by her clients, has reassured her unique style.

“I come to a point where if a client approaches me, it´s because they already know my graphic language. It´s very comfortable, very enjoyable and it gives me time to combine illustration with my personal art pieces”.

“Art was something I really wanted to do from the beginning. Once I approached it in a different way and started doing it because I wanted to, not because I had to make a living, then I began to do everything and anything, no matter if it would sell or not. Only then did I get an exhibition”.

After that first exhibition, Catalina was able to go to other galleries with photographs of her first show in hand and persuade them to showcase her work.

This approach has resulted in exhibitions at the Jonathan Le Vine Gallery in New York, Iguapop in Barcelona and at the La Luz de Jesús in Los Angeles.

See more of her illustrations and latest events and shows at Catalina Estrada´s web-site.

Way to go Catalina, thank you and I wish you even more success!

See her brother´s work here.

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