IN LIVING COLOR
South Florida painter Valentina Bilbao infuses musical elements into her vibrant works of art.
Let’s be clear: Artist Valentina Bilbao doesn’t paint with music quietly humming in the background. No, in fact, the music is in the foreground, becoming an element that’s just as instrumental to her artwork as are her brush and paint. Born to a father who loved to paint and a mother who played piano, Bilbao can’t remember a time when she hasn’t painted without music playing alongside her. As she explains it, “Music is a piece of art that I decode and paint in color. Simply put, I take a song and paint it. I bring it from the abstract world and bring it to the visual, concrete world.”
The Weston resident has done that time and time again, from painting “Cinema Paradiso” from the classic film of the same name to Hans Zimmer’s “Now We Are Free” from Gladiator to Guns N’ Roses’ “November Rain.” Inside her 2,000-square-foot studio in Davie, Bilbao can often be seen painting to the sounds of live musicians strumming notes from the latest song she wants to paint. There, these musicians help Bilbao, who’s exhibited in her native Venezuela, as well as the Boca Raton Museum of Art and Art Wynwood, bring the songs to life with vivid acrylic paint colors on large-scale canvases. “I paint what we don’t see,” she says. “For example, I feel color, and I can hear it. I hear music, and I can feel it inside of me.”
Miami-based collector and realtor Ana Rodriguez, who owns several of Bilbao’s original works, remembers seeing Bilbao paint for the first time nearly seven years ago. “Immediately, when I saw her art, I could feel happiness,” Rodriguez says. “When you see her paintings, you get happy. You either want to dance or want to smile.”
Link to article: Modern Luxury
