Artist Spotlight: Mila Useche

"A selection of work by artist Mila Useche. Born in Bogotá, Colombia, and currently based in Ehime, Japan, Useche completed her BFA at Berliner Technische Kunsthochshule in Berlin, Germany. Her work is a blend of pop-inspired visuals, personal stories, Catholic iconography, animated cartoons, and pre-Colombian mythologies. She also explores themes of identity, collective nostalgia, and personal mythologies. Useche's approach involves channeling the intuitive energy of her younger self."

"“I'm attracted to how painting, a slow, material act, can counter the speed and saturation of the post-internet world and provide a comforting physical weight, a gentle cage to embrace the uncapturable nature of my Self. I often apply acrylics onto canvas in a spontaneous way. First, I aim for unrefined and ambiguous shapes, so I can later move on to more complex rendering methods to slowly discover these avatar-like characters you see reappearing in my work.”"

Mila Useche was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and is based in Ehime, Japan, after completing a BFA at Berliner Technische Kunsthochshule in Berlin. Her paintings combine pop-inspired visuals, personal stories, Catholic iconography, animated cartoons, and pre-Colombian mythologies. She investigates identity, collective nostalgia, and personal mythologies by channeling the intuitive energy of her younger self, producing competing versions of the self that function as self-portraits or “aura-selfies.” Her process prioritizes slow, material painting—applying acrylics spontaneously, beginning with ambiguous shapes, then refining to reveal recurring avatar-like characters. She was shortlisted for the 2025 Booooooom Art & Photo Book Award.

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