Finding in oil paintingher vehicle to substantiate memories, turn dark feelings into evocative nuances, and materialize an alternate, surreal reality, El Salvador-born, U.S.-based artist Daniella Portillo reenacts the power of imagination to reconnect with her roots.

Portillo’s dreamy landscapes inspired by emotional recollections of her upbringing in El Salvador push the limits of what remains accessible in the experience of loss and migration. The romanticized views of El Salvador served as a catharsis for the artist, who embraced the sudden change of country and destiny flowing through it by lingering in surreal memories to remain anchored to her roots.

Portillo fled her native country and moved to the U.S. aged 8 and has turned the sentimental attachment to her hometown into the creative fuel for her art.

Mastering the sanding and blurring painting techniques, Portillo smooths out the texture of thick layers of oil paint and creates disorienting blocks of color through hand motion that suggest clouds, the sky and the land, to explore the themes of “limited information” and “diluted memories,” leveraging light to reveal the essence of her creative process.

Here Daniella Portillo takes the Retori community through her creative process and how her personal journey of life has informed the research of her Roots through art.