Between the Seams: In Conversation with Mar Figueroa
Mar Figueroa’s entrancing portraits are infused with Ecuadorian iconography and mysticism. Figueroa speaks with Lara Xenia about her aesthetic practice, botanical interests, and personal journey.
Figure 1: Mar Figueroa, Two Tongues, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 48 × 36 inches (121.92 × 91.44 cm). Photo: courtesy the artist © Mar Figueroa
Lara Xenia: Tell me about your career trajectory.
Mar Figueroa: I’ve been painting since I was a child, with the support of mentors from around the age of nine. I studied at the Rhode Island School of Design for undergrad, and after graduating, I moved back to Ecuador because I couldn’t afford to sustain a studio practice in the U.S. That limitation pushed me to explore digital tools, which expanded my creative possibilities and led to work with clients like The New York Times, Microsoft, Netflix...I spent several years in design and also discovered a genuine love for teaching. Today, I’ve shifted my focus back to painting, which led me to pursue my master’s at Yale.
LX: That sounds quite lucrative and fulfilling.
MF: Yes, it was, but eventually I chose to leave that behind and return to painting [laughter.] After receiving a notable distinction in the art world, I found myself sitting by the Greenpoint pier in New York, overwhelmed with emotion. Though I was honored, I realized my true passion was always painting. After a family loss, I used my savings to live abroad in Japan, Cuba, Spain, and other places. When the pandemic hit, I moved to Mexico to fully dive into my work. It became a quiet time of healing and reconnecting with both my studio practice and spirituality.
LX: That’s incredible and I’m also sorry for your loss. Painting yourself can be a vulnerable act, but it’s interesting that you feel a greater sense of agency in doing so. What’s the impetus behind that choice?
MF: The female nude has a long history in Western art, predominantly created through the male gaze, framed as an object of visual pleasure, a symbol or ideal rather than a fully autonomous subject. For me, rather than rejecting the female figure, instead, I see value in painting the body—after all, it is my own. This self-representation allows me to engage in a dialogue with the viewer where the gaze is reciprocal. The female body remains one of the most contested subjects in painting, never free from scrutiny.
Since my Pit Crit earlier this semester, I’ve been grappling with feedback challenging me to rethink my approach, and I’ve had honest conversations with professors about it.
LX: What is the Pit?
MF: The Pit is Yale’s main critique space where Painting/Printmaking students present twice during the program. Mine was soon after finals, so I worked nonstop through the holidays, fully focused but completely drained. Then came the critiques. They pushed me to confront my reliance on the female figure. I told a professor, “I’ve been so deconstructed, I’m a biological pudding inside a chrysalis.” That moment felt like a turning point. Now I’m leaning into the discomfort, rebuilding from this vulnerable, formless state, waiting to rupture into something new.
Figure 2: Studio view of Mar Figueroa’s Yale MFA studio. Photo: courtesy the artist © Mar Figueroa
LX: That's a unique idea—to sprout or flower out of something.
MF: This is what I'm currently obsessed with: fungi [shows image of fungus]. Under the right conditions, the “Veiled Lady” mushroom can shoot up in under an hour.
LX: How fun. I’m curious, has Shahzia Sikander’s works or figuration ever been of interest to you?
MF: She was just here in my studio last week! She really deconstructed my practice.
Figure 3: Shahzia Sikander, The Scroll, 1989–1990, vegetable color, dry pigment, watercolor, and tea on hand-prepared wasli paper, 63.88 × 13.5 inches (162.26 × 34.29 cm). Photo: courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery © Shahzia Sikander
LX: Wait, really? How random!
MF: I really look up to her. We both read a lot of poetry, and I told her how the words of Mary Oliver, Ada Limón, Joy Harjo, Adrienne Rich, and others linger in my studio. She offered an interesting suggestion: if I begin working beyond self-portraits, to channel the spirit of the women who inspire me rather than depict their actual likenesses. That resonated.
LX: How funny and yes, I suppose I thought about her early approach to archetypal depictions of women where she’d obstruct their heads, or render forms based on poetry. It looks like you’re already starting to deviate from figuration. From what I can gather, your interest in absence or anonymity seems to align more with Ana Mendieta’s agenda.
This self-representation allows me to engage in a dialogue with the viewer where the gaze is reciprocal. The female body remains one of the most contested subjects in painting, never free from scrutiny.
MF: Yes, definitely. Ana Mendieta is a pioneer for Latina artists like me, and her influence is foundational. I’m also inspired by Belkis Ayón and Francesca Woodman, who both worked with this poetic strategy of anonymity. That sense of the unseen or partially obscured appears in my own practice too.
In my paintings, figures inhabit domestic spaces where the presence of nature feels suspended, as if waiting to enter. This tension between presence and absence reflects my own background. I was raised in a Roman Catholic environment but my worldview was also shaped by Indigenous knowledge. That duality between what is visible and what is felt is something I return to again and again in my work.
Figure 4: Mar Figueroa, To Dance in the Dark, and Vanquish the Devouring Weeds, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 35.5 × 43.5 inches (90.17 × 110.49 cm). Photo: courtesy the artist © Mar Figueroa
I explore that cultural duality in Blessed Waters for the Soul and the Flesh. Using Catholic aesthetics, I painted a scene of a spiritual bath rooted in an Indigenous ritual, where the spirit is cleansed with herbal waters made by boiling plants known for their healing properties, like rosemary. In To Dance in the Dark, and Vanquish the Devouring Weeds, I deflect vines from the mouths of green figures. Iron gates like the ones on the windows of my childhood home keep them out. The domestic space becomes both a sanctuary and a shield.
At the center of the painting, I’m performing an egg cleansing, a ritual I grew up with where a raw egg is passed over the body to absorb spiritual disturbances. It’s a practice I return to in difficult moments. I’m inside my home, holding the egg and activating its spiritual force. I wanted the figure to feel grounded and powerful in that act.
LXM: I love the Indigenous knowledge you bring to your practice. Would you ever make a series centered around botany in the future?
Figure 5: “Veiled Lady” fungus (Phallus indusiatus). Photo: courtesy Wikipedia Commons
MF: I think a lot about how plants shaped my upbringing and carry ancestral knowledge. As an Andean woman, I was raised with deep respect for nature, a care and reciprocity that still guides me. Ecuador, inspired by Indigenous worldviews, was the first country to recognize nature’s rights in its constitution, affirming that nature has the right to exist, thrive, and regenerate. That perspective stays with me, especially in how I relate to plants, fungi, and overlooked life.
Though I also grew up in the concrete sprawl of Jersey City, I remained rooted in an Andean household. My grandmother, the matriarch, taught us that tending the earth was a form of reverence. We lived across from a notorious drug dealer, and crime surrounded us, but she defiantly grew her herbs. That quiet rebellion stayed with me. I’ve always been drawn to that place where domestic life and nature meet. A rebellious dandelion erupting from concrete is what my childhood felt like.
LX: That’s surreal. It sounds like you grew up in a household of powerful women.
MF: Yes, the women in my family led us through instability. They were also unapologetically feminine and taught me that caring for your image can be a form of dignity and resistance.
LX: That’s so relatable [laughter]. I’d be curious to know more about the moth tableau.
Figure 6: Mar Figueroa, All Night I Rose and Fell, My Thoughts Floating Light as Moths, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 35.5 × 23.5 inches (90.17 × 59.69 cm). Photo: courtesy the artist © Mar Figueroa
MF: This painting was directly inspired by Mary Oliver’s poem “Sleeping in the Forest.” I’ll read it to you:
I thought the earth
remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the riverbed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.
LX: So beautiful. The cropped, hovering eyes add another layer of intensity. The moth’s dewiness also conjures nature’s fecundity and the ants vaguely remind me of Dalí’s [laughs].
MF: Yes, I chose not to fully render the figure’s face, leaving space for the viewer to complete the image. Instead of absence, this space holds a Luna moth and ants, insects that animate the figure with their quiet significance. The moth suggests change and fragility, a presence attuned to the night. The ants evoke memory and the steady rhythm of work. By substituting parts of the face with these beings, I point to how identity emerges through fragments, gestures, and what surrounds us. We are shaped not only by what is visible, but by what moves through us, often unnoticed.
LX: What were you invoking in this serpentine work?
Figure 7: Mar Figueroa, Blessed Waters for the Soul and the Flesh, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 48 × 36 inches (121.92 × 91.44 cm). Photo: courtesy the artist © Mar Figueroa
MF: Ah, I was interested in making her a snake woman. I like to reclaim the history we’ve inherited as women, this ongoing association with snakes, whether it's being tempted by one or becoming something monstrous, like Medusa. To me, snakes aren’t symbols of shame, but of power and transformation. I have three snake tattoos.
LX: You know, “Mar” means “snake” in Farsi!
MF: I’ve heard that before! I’m fascinated by snakes, scorpions, and other small creatures considered dangerous. Their strength isn’t loud or obvious, it comes from within. They produce their own poison, carrying power inside their small bodies. That kind of internal defense really captivates me.
Figure 8: Mar Figueroa, Blessed Waters for the Soul and the Flesh (detail), 2023, acrylic on canvas, 48 × 36 inches (121.92 × 91.44 cm). Photo: courtesy the artist © Mar Figueroa
I’ve always been drawn to that place where domestic life and nature meet. A rebellious dandelion erupting from concrete is what my childhood felt like.
LX: Do the red droplets here signify blood at all?
MF: Yes, the red droplets signify blood, but in this painting they also hold space as nectar. The plant is Cantua buxifolia, known as the Flower of the Incas. My ancestors were buried with these flowers so their souls could drink from the nectar on their journey to the other side. For me, it speaks to both loss and offering—a circulation of spirit, of blood, of something returned to the earth. Blood disorders run in my family. I lost my sister to leukemia, so the presence of blood in my work carries a sacred, personal weight.
LX: Oh, I’m so sorry about your sister; it’s beautiful that you represent it that way. I’m really curious about your current exploration of oil paints right now in your recent series.
Figure 9: Mar Figueroa, Portrait as Daphne, Remembering Her Human Skin, 2025, oil on canvas, 60 × 48 inches (152.4 × 121.92 cm). Photo: courtesy the artist © Mar Figueroa
MF: These are actually my first oil paintings, and I’m drawn to how fluid the material feels, and how that fluidity seeps into the narrative itself. In this piece, [gesturing to the painting] I moved away from symbolic figuration and instead used the behavior of the paint on the surface to express emotional states.
The painting is a depiction of the emotional dialogue that happens in the process of making. There are several figures, each representing a different emotional mindset, and the fluidity between them shows how they soothe or interrupt one another. The central figure keeps painting through it all—through doubt, pain, care, and critique.
Figure 10: Mar Figueroa, Portrait as Daphne, Remembering Her Human Skin (detail), 2025, oil on canvas, 60 × 48 inches (152.4 × 121.92 cm). Photo: courtesy the artist © Mar Figueroa
LX: Wow, this work has a lot of psychological weight. I like how you included a strand of thread that weaves it altogether.
MF: Yes, those details quietly reflect my family’s influence. My grandmother was a seamstress who raised me while my mother worked at her restaurant. From a young age, she recognized my love for drawing and involved me in her practice. During summers, I stayed in Ecuador, where I was cared for by my other grandmother, a nurse. I’d accompany her as she cared for women after childbirth, and was fascinated by the way her hands moved as she removed sutures. Those gestures of mending and repair feel deeply embedded in me, and I see their hands in this work.
Figure 11: Mar Figueroa, Untitled, 2025, oil on canvas, 75 × 30 inches (190.5 × 76.2 cm). Photo: courtesy the artist © Mar Figueroa
In this piece, [points to the painting of a woman lying down] I began thinking about a more mythological self—sirens or mermaids, liminal beings who exist between land and sea. I wanted to experiment with how paint moves across the body, creating a sensation like waves rolling in and receding along the shoreline. One late night in the studio, I was feeling homesick. I had this vivid thought: what if I could swim all the way back to Ecuador, through the ocean and up the river that leads to my home, and arrive in time for the winter holidays? It’s also worth noting that all my paintings take place at night.
LX: Why is that? Also, do you consider yourself nocturnal?
MF: I’m absolutely nocturnal, I love the nighttime. Most days I work until 2:00 a.m, and sometimes even until 5:00 a.m. I really come alive in the quiet of the night, when everyone else is asleep and I can feel the charge of the day. Unfortunately, I don’t wake up with energy. I’ve tried painting in the morning, but it never flows. For me, there really is something magical about nighttime. I can feel stories begin to take shape.
LX: That’s amazing. As a final query: what’s something that you had in your childhood bedroom that you distinctly remember?
MF: That’s a good question. I immediately thought of my grandmother. We shared a bed, and so much of my childhood is wrapped up in that closeness. Growing up, space was limited in my home, so we shared a bed. I loved watching her pray. It wasn’t a typical American bedroom with posters, but had an old-lady aesthetic—that really influences my style and how I carry myself today. I’m very much “grandma” [laughter].
Mar Figueroa
Mar Figueroa (b. 1993, Guayaquil, Ecuador) is pursuing an MFA in Painting/Printmaking at the Yale School of Art, graduating in 2026. Her work explores the porous boundary between the domestic and natural worlds—thresholds where ants traverse, plants lean inward, and the spirit world remains embedded in the everyday. Drawing from Andean cosmologies, she paints the slow, unseen processes of transformation, where the self is shaped in reciprocity with nature. A Forbes “30 Under 30” honoree, MacDowell fellow and Hopper Prize recipient, she has taught at RISD and SVA, and will debut at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery this fall.