Arte-Art / Arts & Humanities Team / SPEL Stories

Costa Rican painter Marite Vidales on her art and inspiration

By hola | Published May 30, 2023 | 1 Comment

Marite Vidales is a Costa Rican painter who has exhibited extensively in the United States, Germany, Peru, and Costa Rica over the course of a three-decade career. While she spent many years raising a family in the Maryland suburbs, she relocated to Washington, D.C.’s Shaw neighborhood with her husband in 2015, starting a new chapter in their lives.

She has an art studio in her home, where she paints. In addition, she teaches art at the Vida Senior Centers’ two Northwest Washington locations. In her painting, she employs symbols to communicate meaning. For decades, she has also experimented with techniques to enhance her acrylic paintings. She says she strives to create a harmonious and balanced image by using colors and textures varying her work between figuration and geometric abstraction.

In our interview, Vidales discusses a variety of projects through which she expresses her life experiences. Previously she’s created various thematic series based on her life as an immigrant to the United States, as well as her travels and social concerns. 

Read more below about her work and how she develops her ideas over time when determining what her next project will be. 

When did you realize you wanted to be an artist? How did you start making art? 

When I was a child, I remember that my aunt from my father’s side was an artist. I always liked doing art, especially painting, so my parents enrolled me in painting classes when I was seven years old. [After high school], at first, I started studying mostly publicity, but I didn’t like it. So then I switched to just visual art. I have a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Costa Rica with a specialty in painting. Since then, I have been painting, and at this time, I have the studio in my home.  

How did you begin creating art for the Latino community?

In 2007, I started with the idea that I would like to use my art to help any institution that worked with immigrants. I came up with the idea to create portraits, interview people and find out more about their experiences: why’d they come here? What were their expectations? 

I had a friend who was working at a nonprofit organization in Montgomery County called Community Reach of Montgomery County. They have different programs. Their language outreach program teaches English and citizenship classes for adult immigrants. They also have a clinic to provide healthcare for people who don’t have insurance and everything. So while some of the people were waiting in the clinic, I got permission to interview them.   

So I went several times to interview these immigrants. I was just writing things down and saying, “Tell Me Your Dreams…” because that was the title of my series. I asked them a lot of questions: what are their dreams? Did they miss their country of origin? I interviewed more than 20 but then, because of timing, I just did eight or nine portraits. We prepared an exhibition, and part of the sales [went back] to the organization.  

Then I was in the studio just trying to picture how to do the paintings. My whole idea was to paint related to immigration. Not just with the portraits but doing other paintings using symbols like paper boats, roses, or the monarch butterfly. For more than two years, I started painting just for this exhibition, which focused directly on Latin American people. 

Why those symbols? 

I did several roses because they are also a gesture of friendship, and many years ago, I remember seeing immigrants selling roses on the streets. So I did several paintings of roses and others with paper boats.

I had the idea to work with a symbol of the paper boat because it has a lot of symbolism. The vessel transports people, there’s the metaphor to transport dreams and expectations. I even used real paper boats that I attached to the paintings. 

I did some models with monarch butterflies because they fly from Canada, the United States and Mexico. During the wintertime, actually, they arrive in Mexico by November 1, like the date of death. It’s like a natural immigration. So that’s why I relayed it to immigrants.

Where do you get your inspiration? 

I work in series, that’s the thing. I [get] very impressed when something [catches] my attention or when I get to places where I [can] start thinking. For example, my latest series was about the Grand Canyon because I visited the Grand Canyon two years ago. It was my first trip after we got the vaccines during the pandemic … I got some pine barks [there]. So on the back of each pine bark, I saw that … the lines looked like the rocks at the Grand Canyon. So I started collecting them … I started a series of paintings of pine barks, and then I stuck them on a shadow box. In March, I had the opportunity to exhibit them in a place in New Jersey. So that was my latest piece. 

Before that, since we were in a pandemic, I developed the “at-home” series. Everything included little houses. So for a couple of years, I was painting everything related to the pandemic at home.

Before that series, I did one about coffee. So for a couple of years, I painted everything related to coffee. I even used coffee beans, ground coffee, [and] burlap from the sacks. [In] Costa Rica, we have a lot of coffee. I have loved coffee since I was a child. And I feel that when you go to have coffee with friends, it’s a good way to connect, to socialize. At that time, my son was working as a barista in a cafeteria. Since everything was related to coffee, I said I was going to start painting about coffee. So those were the other series that I did. 

Well, before that, I lived for 2 years in Peru because of my husband’s job. So I was very inspired by the wonderful ancient cultures that Peru has: the Inca blacks and the textiles, the ceramics, and all the iconography and ceremonial sites. It’s so wonderful. They have a lot of ancient cultures. So I also did a series about Peru. 

How do you know when you have settled on your next project? Is it a feeling?

Yeah, there is a feeling, and [when] something is on my mind, I kind of focus on it all the time. If I have something in mind, I look for information about that thematic thing. So I start one painting and then if I like the idea of the one painting, I start the other one and that is the way that I started developing. That’s if I’m very excited about it because sometimes I know it is not going to work for long. I try to draw, to sketch, but I need a topic, something that I’m very interested in at that moment to start a series.

So I hope that I find the motivation of something. It’s something that you cannot force, those things. You cannot hurry up and say, “Oh, I need to come out right away with an idea.” So I don’t know…at this moment, I don’t know what I’m going to do next. But there is nothing I can do to predict how long.

What prompted you to move to D.C.? Where were you living before?

In December 2015, I had the chance to move here [D.C.] with my husband, after raising my kids in Beltsville, Maryland. I like D.C. because I feel more connected. I felt more isolated in the suburbs because people use their cars and they just go home [after work]. You have more chances here in the city to connect with people. In Beltsville, Maryland, in Montgomery County,  it was harder. I didn’t find many kinds of organizations or artists’ groups. I used to come to the city to visit the museums and everything

What else do you do in the D.C. community? 

Well, I started working with the Vida Senior Centers in 2018. During the pandemic, they closed but then for a while, we did it over Zoom. And now we are back. So I go once a week to the Brightwood Center. And on Tuesdays, for example, I go to them at the Adams Morgan location. I really love to work with the seniors, and I see how art is kind of therapeutic, how art can stimulate people. They have a good time when they are painting and creating. 

*This story has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.

– Interview by Jennifer Alfaro & Christine MacDonald

– Story by Jennifer Alfaro

– Editing by Amelia Woolley-Larrea

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