SONIA MORALES
ART, FASHION AND RETHINKING CLASSICS
This season, we collaborated with artist Sonia Morales to bring our Rethinking Classics window displays to life. We spoke with her about her career, her relationship with fashion and the way she sees everyday objects.
On September 30, we also opened an exhibition of her work at our Fernando VI store.
To begin with, how did your relationship with painting start?
My relationship with painting goes back as far as I can remember. When I was eight years old, I started attending a painting school, the same one where I now teach, and since then it has always been part of my life as a complement to everything else. First school, then university and work… Until today, when it has evolved from a complement into my profession.
When did you decide to focus on it entirely?
After finishing university, completing internships, and entering the professional world as a stylist, I broadened my perspective on fashion, art, photography, and discovered new possibilities and ways of working. Every time I showed my work, the first reaction was usually, “Why don’t you do this professionally?” At first, I did not think too much about it, but little by little I started to consider it as a real option and began imagining projects that could connect art and fashion.
Although I had always known painting would be present in my life, I had never truly considered that it could become my career. I began by balancing commissions with my office job, until there came a point when, together with the personal and professional circumstances I was experiencing, I felt it was the sign I needed to take the leap and dedicate myself to painting full-time.
Your artworks turn everyday objects into the main characters. What do you think an object can reveal about the person who chooses or uses it?
I believe the objects we use every day speak about us in a very honest and unique way. It is in our daily routines that we show ourselves most authentically. When choosing the items that accompany us each day, we do so from our truest selves.
The way we carry our house keys, the papers, receipts, or photographs we keep, or do not keep, in our wallets, everything we accumulate, or do not accumulate, on our bedside table… There is an intimacy in these details that reveals a great deal about who we are and how we live.
Many of your paintings feature clothing, shoes, and accessories. What do you find in fashion that you are interested in bringing onto the canvas?
In my paintings, I try to create a universe that reflects my way of understanding aesthetics and the world around us. Fashion is my other great passion, so it naturally deserves a leading role in my work.
I enjoy the contrast, both aesthetic and symbolic, between these special garments, accessories, and jewellry pieces and ordinary objects that surround us every day. Fashion, like everyday life itself, also speaks about our personality and the context in which we live.
The concept of our season is Rethinking Classics: revisiting classics through a new perspective. How does this idea connect with your understanding of painting?
This concept aligns closely with the way I approach my work. I like my paintings to have a traditional, everyday-life essence that recalls classical still lifes, reinterpreted through contemporary objects and aesthetics.
In my previous series, Leftover Beauties, I started with everyday objects that form part of our lives, classics in their own way, to create what many people called “modern still lifes,” with the idea of revisiting the familiar and discovering that there is still something new to be found within it.
And speaking of classics, what garment do you consider essential and could never be missing from your wardrobe?
Probably a structured jacket with a masculine cut. I like clothing made from natural materials, with weight and a beautiful drape, and a jacket like that makes me feel confident and comfortable in any situation.
