We recently connected with Isabel Pardo and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Isabel, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I always knew that I was going to pursue a career in the arts. I was lucky to come from a public school system with a very encouraging arts program that offered a lot of opportunities for early insight into creative careers. By the time I was 18 I had been involved in curating two exhibitions in local New Jersey Galleries. This opportunity changed my life and I began to look at the pursuit of the arts in a deeper, more holistic way. I no longer wanted to only make art, though in all I pursue I consider myself an artist first. I wanted to learn how to display, curate, and write about art. I especially sought to understand how it takes a village to make it all happen. From there, I was staring straight into a career in museum work.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am someone who believes in learning the rules before learning to break the rules. I decided early on that if I was going to go into the arts then I had to be surrounded by art and artists. I chose to go the traditional route of art school – a socially, and financially daunting decision. Despite jokes and stereotypes about art school dropouts and starving artists, I only saw success for myself, so I moved from suburban New Jersey to Baltimore city to attend The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). I loved MICA because I could create a customized degree plan to Major in Painting and minor in Art History and Curatorial Studies. I was a very active student and ultimately I think that has helped me with my career the most. I took every opportunity that I could find and said yes if it was offered to me. Through 2018-2019 I became one of two curators in the Exhibition Development Seminar, a year-long course designed to organize and install an exhibition and its programming from start to finish. Displayed in Baltimore’s Peale Museum, we presented historically hysterical, a show based around the concept of anarcha feminism featuring artists who reject the coercive hierarchy of gender roles in order to smash the patriarchy. Taking up all the floors of the building, with interactive elements and excellent graphics from our education and graphic design teams, it became a fully immersive exhibition, reckoning with the history of the space and the social history behind each work. I became enraptured with this way of thinking and was creating large scale installation work in my studio, wanting to create immersive installations for viewers to move through. Then 2020 happened.
The pandemic was simultaneously the best and worst thing that happened to my artistic practice. I found myself stuck in my DIY studio in my parents New Jersey suburban basement after having a study abroad trip in Florence get cut short. Roiling with an existential crisis, I threw myself into my work and developed my thesis series Have You Seen The Horsemen Yet? My work has often leaned into surrealism, primarily inspired by art historical imagery, alchemy, and tarot. With the added challenge of COVID, I had to create new ways to view my work virtually. Fueled with the iconography of the Apocalypse and esoteric symbolism I had seen in Italy, I created 13 paintings to live in two installations, one no one could access except through images, and the other modeled as the interactive Cocktail Hour of the Apocalypse for my COVID Pod in Baltimore. During this time of existential dread and global shutdown I was taking on multiple external projects, one of which was a virtual exhibition I developed with an old collaborator Johanna Cordasco entitled THIS IS NOT THE END. After months of development we launched the site on January 1st, 2021 featuring 14 artists from four different undergraduate programs complete with a catalog, artist talk and a “mobile” exhibition in the form of a pair of pants with all the curated work.
After graduation, I found myself working full time for the Baltimore Museum of Art as a visitor services associate while also managing after hours events. I served as a gallery assistant for a local gallery on my weekends. As can be expected, I was making at a much slower pace, but managed a few new pieces to accompany my thesis work for my first solo exhibition at Alchemy of Art in Baltimore. In rapid succession, I had a new painting series in progress and a solo show lined up at The Aerogramme Center for Arts and Culture–an online gallery begun by my friend and fellow artist curator Zoe Moldenhaur with whom I developed programming for Aerogramme over 2021 and 2022.
After a. year and a half at the museum I became the Assistant to the Directors Office which has brought me incredible insight into the inner workings of art institutions and allowed me to afford the finances and time for a painting studio outside my home. Within a year of having a studio I have been able to organize hand painting products for my first art markets, work on large scale paintings, and prepare a large scale solo show at the Baltimore Theatre Project which ran from December 2023 to January 2024. I have many exciting projects in development including more immersive installations in which I will be collaborating with a number of local artists and performers. Although I get caught up in comparison at times, or feel that I am not doing enough for my creative practice, I continue to take every opportunity that comes my way and ensure that my life is filled with art.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
If you are able, prioritize local artists and small makers. Do you want a print for your living room? A ceramic pot for your plant loving friend? A candle whose scent is inspired by a renaissance painting? Go to your artist markets, your farmers markets, your instagram explore page. We are at a time where we are constantly looking to have “authenticity” in our appearances and in the way we live, but many of us end up wearing the same clothes and buying the same objects. As convenient as Amazon and Target may be, artists and craftspeople have been fundamental for creating the objects we love and use everyday…and can last the test of time.
As I have begun participating in artist markets this last year, I have learned so much about my relationship with the financial side of making. Although artist made goods are usually equated with having a heftier price tag, I hope that they can also provide an opportunity to reflect on our relationship with material goods, how are they valued? How is the maker, their time, and materials used valued? Do you make goods or offer services to trade? I feel that to create not only a thriving creative ecosystem, but overall a thriving financial ecosystem, we have to look smaller and see if we can use our money to support small businesses and people as opposed to corporations.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
The simple fact about the creative process is that it will always look different. From the making of a single piece to the larger scale of building a career, there is no single way to achieve success, especially when success looks very different to each person. What might come as a surprise to many outside the art world is that some fine artists do not want to be in art fairs and be represented by a New York gallery as those spaces might not align with their work or their values. There are countless paths one can find themselves on in the arts, and they are often accompanied by a full time or side job.
In my practice, the definition of success has begun to reshape itself. For a long time, my definition of success was to be a museum professional and a working artist. Now that I am lucky enough to have achieved that goal, I am expanding my view of what my career looks like in my future. For me, despite what job title I might have, I am always an artist first. To have the time to create, research, explore, and display my work is my priority. For many artists and creative people, we have felt that it was necessary to make our entire identities about being artists, which can be constraining at times. We are part of the product you are buying, the piece that you view in a gallery, the design behind the website you browse. For me, I have found it necessary to make my life about art and all the dynamic identities that come with that. I have had the opportunities to work across various institutions, from an interior design firm, to galleries and museums, while learning the ins and outs of developing my own individual practice. Whatever I am doing, I will be learning and developing who I am as an artist and how I can create a community with the work I do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://isabelpardoart.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/isabel.pardo.art/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/isabelpardoart
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabel-pardo07920/
Image Credits
1st photo: Oliver Maddox Photo