PAULA ANDREAACEVEDO
I think I became an artist long before I knew what being an artist meant.
I grew up in Bogotá, Colombia, in a family where there wasn’t always money for the things I imagined. As a child, I would see toys on television that I wanted but couldn’t have, so I made them myself. Cardboard, paper, whatever I could find became the material for the world I wanted to create.
I memorized scenes and acted them out. I danced. I created little concerts. I built things. Imagination wasn’t something separate from everyday life—it was how I experienced it.
Looking back, I think that was my first education as an artist: learning that not having something didn’t mean I couldn’t create it.
At fourteen, my mother saved for months so I could attend one semester of acting school. It was an enormous sacrifice for our family, and one of my first opportunities to experience art beyond the world I had created for myself.
That curiosity never really chose a single medium.
Over the years, I explored visual art, photography, film, performance and education. I eventually studied art formally in California, earning my Associate in Arts with Highest Honors before continuing my studies in Studio Art at Sonoma State University.
Then I found tattooing.
THE BODY AS CANVAS
Tattooing brought together so many things I had been searching for: drawing, composition, the human form, intimacy, movement, storytelling and permanence.
But my relationship with tattooing has continued to evolve.
Today, I create original ornamental work that lives somewhere between fine art, adornment and fashion. I’m interested in the relationship between delicacy and power—the idea that something can be intricate, feminine and soft without disappearing.
In fact, it can command attention precisely because of those qualities.
I think of the pieces I create almost as garments for the body. They respond to the person wearing them: their proportions, movement, energy and the way they want to inhabit themselves.
My current collections are made up of original designs created only once. Rather than reproducing an image again and again, I want each piece to belong to one person and one story.
The work becomes something collected, chosen and worn.
View the portfolioMORE THAN
THE TATTOO
Over time, I also began photographing the women I tattoo.
Something unexpected happened.
I watched clients stand differently. Look at themselves differently. Become bolder in front of the camera. I began to understand that the experience I was creating extended beyond the tattoo itself.
That realization changed the way I saw my work.
I am interested in what happens when art becomes part of the way a woman sees herself—when delicacy can make her feel powerful, when visibility can create confidence, and when something created for her becomes something she carries into the world.
This is why my practice today includes more than the act of tattooing. It is design, experience, portraiture, trust and collaboration.
And I think it will continue changing.
I don’t know that I want to define myself by one medium forever. What has remained consistent since I was a little girl building toys out of cardboard is the impulse underneath all of it:
I imagine something, and then I find a way to make it real.
That is still what being an artist means to me.
In their words
“Paula is such an amazing person, made me feel so comfortable and safe! I did a custom tattoo with her and it came out better than I expected. Such a talented individual, overall a great experience. Would book with her again! (:”