An artist based in Argentina, Buenos Aires
Ines Sotomayor
Ines Sotomayor might have had an unusual life journey: born in Argentina, her family moved to Brazil where she lived for 15 years. In her final years of high school, they moved again, this time to Portugal, where she graduated in a Spanish school. Finally, in 1993, she came to Buenos Aires and started college right away.
To soothe this immigrant grief, she drew, painted and wrote, and daydreamed that she would someday become a 'real' artist. She didn't attend art school, however, graduating instead as a Graphic Designer and a Front End Developer. She started studying calligraphy formally in 2003 – with Marina Soria, a talented artist, and a passionate, generous teacher – and also began developing websites that year.
For this reason, Ines likes to say she uses both sides of her brain: 'I write code as someone who knits. I write letters as someone who meditates. I write, as someone who breathes.'
Her introduction to calligraphy occurred while a student at the University of Buenos Aires, in typography classes. It was love at first sight! It felt great to learn this skill in the midst of the computer craze in the design field. Her passion for letters grew so strong that she began teaching classes at the university for almost a decade, specialising in Typography. From then, she has never stopped learning every formal hand and expressive calligraphic styles.
She is currently venturing into the world of watercolours, and has been taking classes with the wonderful calligraphers such as Roballos/Naab, Marina Soria, Silvia Cordero Vega, Giovanni De Faccio, Cláudio Gil, Luca Barcellona, Christopher Haanes, Cora Pearl, Amity Parks, Yukimi Annand, Massimo Pollelo, Mike Gold, John Stevens and Brody Neuenschwander.
'I love calligraphy simply because I love the written word and mostly because I crave for more beauty in the world,' she says.
Works for Symbiosis IV: The Mentoring Journey
ARTIST | Ines Sotomayor
BASED IN | Buenos Aires, Argentina
TITLE | Multi-colour Series (The Joy) -- From people to butterflies - Triptych
SIZE | Two pieces of 105 mm x 245 mm; one piece of 70 x 245 mm
From Multicolor Series (The Joy): From people to butterflies - Triptych
This final series is about gratitude and maturity, and being able to change our notion of belonging.
My father was an architect, but he was also a great artist who created beautiful presentations for buildings to come. He would draw and paint tiny people in the architectonical scenes that he imagined, which always fascinated me. Fortunately, he gave me a lot of his painting materials before he died and recently I used his Ecolines (some of them from the 80's, when he used to paint with the airbrush) to recreate those little persons in his honor.
The colours are inspired by Brazil's flag, the country were I was raised.
Soon I realized that maybe we could metamorphose ourselves if we just allowed us to break free from the ground and be able to finally fly: the whole world is our home.
'From people to butterflies. Belong nowhere to become part of everywhere.'
MEDIUM | Ecoline inks, Rotring Isograph, Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White, Hahnemühle Expression 100% cotton (300gsm) watercolour paper
OPENING BID | USD 200, Frame is not included - Available during our 48 hour IG Auction (See more)
AUCTION CODE | IS_BUTTERFLIES
ARTIST | Ines Sotomayor
BASED IN | Buenos Aires, Argentina
TITLE | Blue Series (The Calm) -- Every time I look at the sea (II) Canvas
SIZE | 350 mm x 500 mm
From Blue Series (The Calm): Every time I look at the sea (II)
The blue and green pieces represent the acceptance and calm, embracing changes as an inevitable part of our life. It also reveals the ocean, a very meaningful element in my journey. We moved from one continent to another crossing the Atlantic and then we came back cruising through it for a couple of weeks. This maritime trip was a life changing experience and I felt, once again, torn in two after it. The sea is omnipresent in my history, since my childhood until my adult years and I've been always looking to the other shore.
'From swallowing so much surge, you've become an amphibian. Every time I look at the sea, I just see this mysterious, dark and sparkling bridge that insists on separating me from myself and that is my way home no matter what shore I'm on.'
MEDIUM | Talens Indian Ink & gouache, Liquitex acrylic inks, Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White, canvas
OPENING BID | USD 400 - Available during our 48 hour IG Auction (See more)
AUCTION CODE | IS_SEA2
ARTIST | Ines Sotomayor
BASED IN | Buenos Aires, Argentina
TITLE | Blue Series (The Calm) -- Every time I look at the sea (I) Canvas Board
SIZE | 300 mm x 400 mm
From Blue Series (The Calm): Every time I look at the sea (I)
The blue and green pieces represent the acceptance and calm, embracing changes as an inevitable part of our life. It also reveals the ocean, a very meaningful element in my journey. We moved from one continent to another crossing the Atlantic and then we came back cruising through it for a couple of weeks. This maritime trip was a life changing experience and I felt, once again, torn in two after it. The sea is omnipresent in my history, since my childhood until my adult years and I've been always looking to the other shore.
'Every time I look at the sea, I just see this mysterious, dark and sparkling bridge that insists on separating me from myself and that is my way home no matter what shore I'm on.'
MEDIUM | Talens Indian Ink & gouache, Liquitex acrylic inks, Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White, canvas
PRICE | USD 300 - Frame is not included (Contact us)
ARTIST | Ines Sotomayor
BASED IN | Buenos Aires, Argentina
TITLE | Blue Series (The Calm) -- Just learn to be movement (Diptych)
SIZE | 142 mm x 185 mm
From Blue Series (The Calm): Just learn to be Movement
These two smaller and flat pieces in shades of blue represent the acceptance and calm, embracing changes as an inevitable part of our life. The sky and the sea always present, in a reflection of new stages in life.
'We were taught to be movement and to be grateful for it even when we didn't fully understand it.'
MEDIUM | Acrylic paint, Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White, Canson Edition 100% cotton (250gsm) paper
OPENING BID | USD 150 - Frame is not included Available during our 48 hour IG Auction (See more)
AUCTION CODE | IS_MOVEMENT
ARTIST | Ines Sotomayor
BASED IN | Buenos Aires, Argentina
TITLE | Black Series (The Grief) -- We are the outsiders
SIZE | 300 mm x 400 mm
From the Black Series (The Grief): We are Outsiders
MEDIUM | Talens Indian Ink & gouache, Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White, canvas board (5mm)
PRICE | USD 300 (Contact us)
ARTIST | Ines Sotomayor
BASED IN | Buenos Aires, Argentina
TITLE | Black Series (The Grief) -- Surely overwhelmed by each new departure
SIZE | 315 mm x 495 mm
From the Black Series (The Grief): Surely overwhelmed by each new departure
The letterforms adapt to the path just like we adapted to the forced journey when we moved away so many times. There's pain and darkness in the life of immigrants, but we keep carrying on because life won't stop or wait until we're ready. So we go with the flow in order to survive the changes: we learn to be movement.
In 2021, at the first anniversary of my father's death, I wrote him a letter trying to get some answers about our wandering fate:
'Surely overwhelmed by each new departure, but more frightening must have been the idea of us staying still. How many times was it necessary to start over? What were we escaping from and what did we go towards each time?'
This text is written in Portuguese, Spanish and English, in order to represent the different countries and stages of my own life.
MEDIUM | Talens Indian ink & gouache, Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White, Hahnemühle Expression 100% cotton (300gsm) watercolour paper
OPENING BID | USD 250 - Frame is not included. Available during our 48 hour IG Auction.
AUCTION CODE | IS_DEPARTURE
Works for Symbiosis IV: The Auction
ARTIST | Ines Sotomayor
BASED IN | Buenos Aires, Argentina
TITLE | Black Series (The Grief) -- Surely overwhelmed by each new departure
SIZE | 315 mm x 495 mm
From the Black Series (The Grief): Surely overwhelmed by each new departure
The letterforms adapt to the path just like we adapted to the forced journey when we moved away so many times. There's pain and darkness in the life of immigrants, but we keep carrying on because life won't stop or wait until we're ready. So we go with the flow in order to survive the changes: we learn to be movement.
In 2021, at the first anniversary of my father's death, I wrote him a letter trying to get some answers about our wandering fate:
'Surely overwhelmed by each new departure, but more frightening must have been the idea of us staying still. How many times was it necessary to start over? What were we escaping from and what did we go towards each time?'
This text is written in Portuguese, Spanish and English, in order to represent the different countries and stages of my own life.
MEDIUM | Talens Indian ink & gouache, Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White, Hahnemühle Expression 100% cotton (300gsm) watercolour paper
OPENING BID | USD 250 - Frame is not included. Available during our 48 hour IG Auction.
AUCTION CODE | IS_DEPARTURE
ARTIST | Ines Sotomayor
BASED IN | Buenos Aires, Argentina
TITLE | Blue Series (The Calm) -- Just learn to be movement (Diptych)
SIZE | 142 mm x 185 mm
From Blue Series (The Calm): Just learn to be Movement
These two smaller and flat pieces in shades of blue represent the acceptance and calm, embracing changes as an inevitable part of our life. The sky and the sea always present, in a reflection of new stages in life.
'We were taught to be movement and to be grateful for it even when we didn't fully understand it.'
MEDIUM | Acrylic paint, Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White, Canson Edition 100% cotton (250gsm) paper
OPENING BID | USD 150 - Frame is not included Available during our 48 hour IG Auction (See more)
AUCTION CODE | IS_MOVEMENT
ARTIST | Ines Sotomayor
BASED IN | Buenos Aires, Argentina
TITLE | Blue Series (The Calm) -- Every time I look at the sea (II) Canvas
SIZE | 350 mm x 500 mm
From Blue Series (The Calm): Every time I look at the sea (II)
The blue and green pieces represent the acceptance and calm, embracing changes as an inevitable part of our life. It also reveals the ocean, a very meaningful element in my journey. We moved from one continent to another crossing the Atlantic and then we came back cruising through it for a couple of weeks. This maritime trip was a life changing experience and I felt, once again, torn in two after it. The sea is omnipresent in my history, since my childhood until my adult years and I've been always looking to the other shore.
'From swallowing so much surge, you've become an amphibian. Every time I look at the sea, I just see this mysterious, dark and sparkling bridge that insists on separating me from myself and that is my way home no matter what shore I'm on.'
MEDIUM | Talens Indian Ink & gouache, Liquitex acrylic inks, Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White, canvas
OPENING BID | USD 400 - Available during our 48 hour IG Auction (See more)
AUCTION CODE | IS_SEA2
ARTIST | Ines Sotomayor
BASED IN | Buenos Aires, Argentina
TITLE | Red Series (The Passion) -- Landscapes of Doubt (Diptych)
SIZE | -
From Red Series (The Passion): Landscapes of doubt
The inexorable desire to transform devastation into poetry, since my early days. I can't imagine there's another way to survive this swirling journey.
'In the midst of the typhoon you will be delirious that the swirl of shatters are the reflections of a kaleidoscope, in the inexorable desire to transform devastation into poetry. You will know later, when the sky finally opens, that those were the colours that kept you alive.'
'Every day I am more fascinated by portals, those required and inevitable passages, blindly, towards ourselves. Now here, always grateful to get lost through these magnificent landscapes of doubt, I don't know much about anything but I do know that I have everything in my favour.'
MEDIUM | Walnut ink, Liquitex acrylic inks, Rotring Isograph, Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White, Canson Edition 100% cotton (250grs).
OPENING BID | USD 150, Frame is not included - Available during our 48 hour IG Auction (See more)
AUCTION CODE | S_DOUBT
ARTIST | Ines Sotomayor
BASED IN | Buenos Aires, Argentina
TITLE | Multi-colour Series (The Joy) -- From people to butterflies - Triptych
SIZE | Two pieces of 105 mm x 245 mm; one piece of 70 x 245 mm
From Multicolor Series (The Joy): From people to butterflies - Triptych
This final series is about gratitude and maturity, and being able to change our notion of belonging.
My father was an architect, but he was also a great artist who created beautiful presentations for buildings to come. He would draw and paint tiny people in the architectonical scenes that he imagined, which always fascinated me. Fortunately, he gave me a lot of his painting materials before he died and recently I used his Ecolines (some of them from the 80's, when he used to paint with the airbrush) to recreate those little persons in his honor.
The colours are inspired by Brazil's flag, the country were I was raised.
Soon I realized that maybe we could metamorphose ourselves if we just allowed us to break free from the ground and be able to finally fly: the whole world is our home.
'From people to butterflies. Belong nowhere to become part of everywhere.'
MEDIUM | Ecoline inks, Rotring Isograph, Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White, Hahnemühle Expression 100% cotton (300gsm) watercolour paper
OPENING BID | USD 200, Frame is not included - Available during our 48 hour IG Auction (See more)
AUCTION CODE | IS_BUTTERFLIES
ARTIST | Ines Sotomayor
BASED IN | Buenos Aires, Argentina
TITLE | Red Series (The Passion) -- Landscapes of Doubt (Diptych)
SIZE | -
From Red Series (The Passion): Landscapes of doubt
The inexorable desire to transform devastation into poetry, since my early days. I can't imagine there's another way to survive this swirling journey.
'In the midst of the typhoon you will be delirious that the swirl of shatters are the reflections of a kaleidoscope, in the inexorable desire to transform devastation into poetry. You will know later, when the sky finally opens, that those were the colours that kept you alive.'
'Every day I am more fascinated by portals, those required and inevitable passages, blindly, towards ourselves. Now here, always grateful to get lost through these magnificent landscapes of doubt, I don't know much about anything but I do know that I have everything in my favour.'
MEDIUM | Walnut ink, Liquitex acrylic inks, Rotring Isograph, Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof White, Canson Edition 100% cotton (250grs).
OPENING BID | USD 150, Frame is not included - Available during our 48 hour IG Auction (See more)
AUCTION CODE | S_DOUBT