VICTORIA SOTO MADRID: THE JOYFUL AND MULTI-COLORED ART

ABOUT VICTORIA, OR MADEMOISELL CHOCOLAT

Victoria Soto Madrid, alias Mademoiselle Chocolat, was born in 1987 in Cartagena, on the south-eastern coast of Spain, to grew up in Cabo de Palos, a small fisherman town on the coast of Cartagena.

Victoria starts telling us how she began making art at the age of 16 by painting some t-shirts and bags for family and friends. Since then, she never stopped. “I don’t see myself doing anything else. I feel happy and complete when I do art, a collage, a big painting, or a small watercolor. Exploring the materials and playing with them, trying new things and techniques, I just like experimenting“, she says.

Victoria then studied Fine Art in Murcia and Milan at the Accademia di Brera from 2005 to 2010, applied to a Master in Contemporary Art Curatorship in Rome at the Universitá La Sapienza from 2011 to 2012, and another in Visual Art Education in Alicante from 2013 to 2014. She is a freelance visual artist since 2010 and now lives and works in Amsterdam since 2014.

WORK AND TECHNIQUE

Vicotria nowadays considers herself mainly a painter, although if this also means a fair amount of frustration – a custom feeling for an artist indeed. Even though throughout the years she has been working as a curator, a mural artist, and art teacher, she has been going back to painting all the time.

Much inspired by “A bunch of Fauves and German Expressionists”, Victoria also admires works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Yayoi Kusama. Outside painting, she’s also driven by music and cinema, other art from which she gains most of her inspiration.

A typical line of her artworks is indeed experimentation, a belief in which Victoria much adheres and is mainly visible in the backgrounds and vivid colors that her pieces evoke. “I would like people to enjoy my art from a very naif and relaxed point of view. I want them to feel joy and curiosity when they are in front of my pieces.” She replied when asked how she would like viewers to relate to her art.

Victoria depicts hints of feminism, autobiographical, psychological, and reference of sexual content, meshed with abstract and expressionism. Her subjects though, have unworldly messages represented by masks or funny characters to express emotional conditions rather than statements or portraits of people.

Her process is spontaneous, as she rarely begins with sketching, and her intuitive approach is what leads to her lively emotional research. She says: “I can feel that is a phase full of experiments where I try new things every week. Some of them, starting as mistakes, become fun and interesting surprises. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do”.

Victoria experiments with a wide range of mediums, although acrylic paint is what mostly she considers being her final choice. In her latest works though, she uses spray, ink, and pastel to create more opulent compositions.

As the backgrounds in her works usually appear as strong parts of the piece, we have been discussing the relevancy she thinks they have. Indeed her objective is to fill up all blank spaces to strengthen the canvas with dominant colors and shapes to define the texture of her brushstrokes, a peculiar feature to finish the artwork with a sort of signature.

Of course, we couldn’t skip asking the origin of her art name Mademoiselle Chocolat. Victoria smiles and concludes by saying that it’s more straightforward than it seems: it came from an old friend’s joke, and she just kept the name as it felt somehow fitting. We agree, as her paintings are as joyful and engaging as the thought of chocolate.

PRESENT AND FUTURE PROJECTS

When asked where she sees herself in the future, she replies: “If I stay in Amsterdam, I would like to keep exhibiting my work and running workshops and creative events. If I go back to Spain, I would love to have a gallery or art space.”

Victoria has a few expos planned in June 2020 in Amsterdam. A personal one in a book shop in Oost Athenaeum Boekhandel from June 12th until the July 24th, and another group one at De Hallen from June 13th to Junee 20th, in which eight artists will be talking about ‘Personal Identity.’

On June 27th and 28th, she will be organizing with a friend CREATE & CHILL, a popup store where people may buy local, handmade, and original creations by local artists, designers, and makers!

Victoria is also part of st-Art Amsterdam.