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Greetings! As an ACTUALIZE Sustaining Member, you are an essential collaborator in our community. We’re excited to invite you behind the scenes to share a closer look at the remarkable artistry you help inspire and uplift.
Before we dive in, hi! I'm Mina Blue, a Seattle artist, creative community member, and Actualize volunteer.
To launch our ACTUALIZE Member series, I spent time with ACTUALIZE artist-in-residence María Zamora, whose warmth and energy are as bright and colorful as her work. These days, you might find her in the studio, leading a screenprinting class, or at one of the many Pioneer Square art, fashion, & music pop-ups.
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As artists, we often have to let our work speak for itself. Through this interview, however, I got the opportunity to explore more of María’s journey at ACTUALIZE and dig into the themes of her work. I discovered that María's rich landscapes, textures, and ‘portals’ to her homeland, Venezuela, hold a deeper sense of beauty, created in layers of homesickness, complex history, and the strength of joy in new forms of belonging.
We hope you enjoy!
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María, with her silver star face stickers and purple eyeliner, embodies a vibrancy - the kind of person you meet whose presence and presentation reflect in their work. Stepping into her lofty studio at Actualize, draped with large-scale, colorful, multi-textured textile landscapes, it's as if you’ve wandered into a dreamy rainforest. | | | | |
María Zamora - My name is María Zamora (she/her). It's funny because on my socials, you can find me as @zamuramaria, with a 'U', which a lot of people think that's my last name, but that's a word in Venezuela used for vulture.
Mina Mora - Is there a reason for the connection?
María Zamora - Yeah, it was just a way of being playful, kind of trying to make myself more like a role. It's funny because I just started when I was a teen, and then I just kept it.
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Los Cínaros | 2025 | fabrics, ink, plywood. | | past, present, & future
MZ - Recently, my practice has mostly been focused on screen printing. I'm just trying to play with more screen printing on textiles. I sew them into tapestries and try to play more with installation or a 3-dimensional aspect on screen printing and bring in more sewing and upcycling fabric scraps.
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MM - Are there any accolades, shows, or moments that you're proud of?
MZ - Looking back, I do feel really proud to realize that my practice started at home.
I was always thinking like, ‘Oh, it's okay. I don't need a studio space. I'm fine working from home or with the space that I have’. When the opportunity appeared to apply to ACTUALIZE, I wanted to give it a try.
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MM - Speaking of shows, is there anything upcoming that you're excited about?
MZ - There's a show created by Tommy Gregory, called ‘Social Contract’. I have a piece in it that I haven't shown since 2020. It's really different from what my work looks like now. Something that people associate with my work is that it's very colorful and very vibrant, almost like a little portal as an escape to something... but this early work, it was the opposite. Just all grayscale, black and white
MM - I don't think I've seen those of yours. I like the idea that your landscapes aren't neutral - that's really powerful.
MZ - There's a phrase; the way that I explain my work. It's about different realities that coexist in my home country, Venezuela - that history that has shaped all of us. At the same time, there's all this beauty that I wish to prioritize in a way that I can relate with my home country from afar..to prioritize some of that beauty.
MM - Kind of redefining it for yourself.
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La Migración 30" x 44" 6 Color Screen Print | | |
MM - What dreams & ideas have you been able to 'actualize' as a resident artist?
MZ - One of the artists who is also at ACTUALIZE works with the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, and she offered the invitation to design for them.
Just having the space to work as many hours as I needed allowed me to finish a series of pieces that were ready for display during the Seattle Art Fair, which was a really cool opportunity.
MM -That's amazing!
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MZ - Having the space to just be crazy and lock myself in and make a mess and then go home and then repeat the next day! Another one that would be coming up next year, called ‘Images of Dialogue’.
It's going to be a collaboration between me and an artist from Oaxaca, Mexico. I've just been really impressed …bridging to countries, other states.
MM - ...to be able to expand to that international scale and have conversations back and forth. When you're supported, it helps you show up for those conversations with artists from different countries, different contexts.
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Forgive Yourself 11 x 17" 2023 | Risograph | Fundraiser Print | | |
MM - This idea in your work, an “attempt to connect from afar with your homeland.” I'm curious; How have you found belonging as an artist and a community member both in Seattle, and ACTUALIZE specifically?
MZ - It has taken me a long time to find community in Seattle. I've been living in Seattle now for 9 years.
MM - Oh wow!
| | MZ - It has been in the last 3 years that I've really narrowed down the community of artists, of Latinos that are in Seattle. It has been really rewarding to see how much that has expanded and how there are more opportunities now. It's just like, so full of color. I hope that it just keeps growing and that we continue to prioritize artists, how much we need them.
For us to be really appreciated, our time and our energy, and, for the importance that we are bringing to communities around Seattle. | | | | |
Orquídeas 38.25" x 50" 6 Color Screen Print on 100lb Stonehenge Paper 2024 | | |
MM - Seattle's creative scene is kind of in a boom right now. We're coming into an era of more resources, more spaces, and diversified programming. What draws you to ACTUALIZE in particular?
MZ - One of the artists that I'm very close with here, she and I have now collaborated because we were studio neighbors.
I think it was that intrigue; what it felt like to have a space and to be in a place where you're surrounded by other artists, which drew me to ACTUALIZE.
| | MZ - Now that they're in another location in Pioneer Square, I've noticed how great it is to have a gallery connected to Pioneer Square and open during Art Walk! | | | | |
Greetings! for being here. In supporting ACTUALIZE, you are an important member in a network of creatives, community members, neighbors, and friends.
We hope you enjoyed reading, and look forward to seeing you around the gallery! | | |
Now on view:
SOCIAL CONTRACT
CURATED BY TOMMY GREGORY & RACHAEL COMER
A GROUP EXHIBITION FEATURING MARIA ZAMORA
SEPTEMBER 19 - NOVEMBER 7, 2026
WITH GALLERY HOURS
THURSDAY THROUGH SATURDAY
12 - 5 PM
| | To see more of Maria's work, you can visit her website here! | | You can find me and more of my work, bloo moon studio, at my website here <3 | | | 112 Prefontaine Place S, Seattle, WA 98104 | | | | |
