During the nineties in Buenos Aires, Paula’s mother, Silvana Cardell, ran an experimental dance studio. Watching choreography sparked Paula’s initial creative impulses. As a young child, Paula was inspired to create art by my mother’s choreography and the movement of the human body. While her mother enrolled Paula in dance classes, she was born with fluid in her ears and was hearing impaired until she underwent ear surgery at 10, and struggled to dance. Instead, she expressed herself visually by creating art from any material she could find. She was particularly drawn to create art for animals, including bird nests she created with pine needles and mud in her grandfather’s house on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

In addition to drawing inspiration from my mother’s choreography, Paula was moved by her physical surroundings in Argentina. Her childhood home was designed by her father, an architect. Paula was fascinated by the various materials within the home, especially a few distorted glass walls, which initiated her interest in glass as a material. During the summers, Paula’s family would travel to the various Argentine provinces, where she was intrigued by the materiality of clay and the color palettes of geographically diverse landscapes.

The economic collapse of the Argentine economy in 2001 was one of the most influential events in Paula’s life. Her family shortly moved to Philadelphia, where they currently reside. Adjusting to life in the United States was incredibly difficult. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Paula struggled to adapt to the slow pace in our new home in the Pennsylvania suburbs. She hardly spoke English upon arriving in the US and was forced to quickly learn the language despite a hearing impairment. 

Immigrating sparked awareness about the impact of political conflict and Paula’s conviction for social change. As a teen, I was politically active and outspoken after my childhood hearing impairment and the immigrant experience sparked an initial awareness of how political turmoil affects people. At the age of 14, I organized a group of 6 students to walk out of school to protest the War on Terror. In high school, I joined Students for a Democratic Society and Gay-Straight Alliance. By 16, I was fundraising and gathering petitions for the Coalition for Peace Action’s lobbying efforts and volunteering for the Obama Campaign.

In high school and later university, Paula merged my political ideas with my love for art by painting the world through her perspective: double. Paula has diplopia, an eye condition that causes double vision, so she painted to capture movement by celebrating her unique gaze. As a junior in high school, Paula studied abroad at the Prepa UdeM in Monterrey, Mexico. Through an exchange with the University of Monterrey, Paula audited six university-level art courses. In Mexico, Paula refined her visual aesthetics by drawing inspiration from Mexican revolutionary art.