Lindaluz Carrillo and the Art of Collaboration
If you live in Hartford, or take some time to explore the city, there's a chance you've seen the work of Lindaluz Carrillo.
Carrillo, an urban pop artist who specializes in graphic design, explores alternative typography by incorporating elements of urban lifestyle, pop culture, and hip-hop into messages of self-love, empowerment, and activism. From commissioned murals at Parkville Sounds, Impact Academy and Barbour St to the more ephemeral at Heaven Skatepark, Carrillo's work stands out among the rest, featuring bold letter styles written in both Spanish and English.
Art has been a part of Carrillo's life since she was very young, collaborating on murals with her elder artistic counterparts. She enjoyed the process and bonding over the act of creation, and it became something she wanted to continue on her own. She started off in the local arts community trying to get her voice heard, and as she's grown in experience and notoriety, younger artists have been looking to her as an artistic/community resource.
"The younger generations are what builds culture and what keep it sustainable," Carrillo said. "I can see the impact that my work has." She wants her work to encourage others to expand on what they're doing. Creating art with her community is essential to her creative process. In addition to surveying a space for a mural commission, she builds relationships with the people dependent on the space to write the story of her future work. She narrows down ideas with the client, and strives to make the process a combination of structure and freeform.
A mural artist in her own right, Carrillo has always valued collaboration as a crucial part of her artistic process. One of her recent projects, "You Are Loved," is a group effort with Fernando Garcia, Mina Echevarria, fellow typography artist Matt Godzik and Angela Godoy. Carrillo knows these artists through many different means, but it meant even more to work with Godoy on this particular project, given they went to the same arts-focused high school and college. Carrillo also collaborates with artists outside of the visual medium. For a while, she shared a multidisciplinary studio space in Parkville with two other Hartford-based artists: Jasmin Agosto, curator and producer with SageSeeker Productions, and recording artist Brandon Serafino.
These days, Carrillo is creating. For her, the pandemic has allowed more time to explore ideas. Instead of working on a client's time, she is diving deeper into her own ideas in both a creative and critical sense. However, working with clients and other artists is something that can't come soon enough.
(photos c/o Lindaluz Carrillo)
- Dan Deutsch, Marketing & Communications Manager
GHAC