Irina E Paba

Irina Paba is a contemporary painter whose work explores the interplay of color, contrast, and texture through oil paintings. Based in Miami, Florida, raised in New York from early childhood, and born in Colombia, and she has spent a lifetime immersed in both the fine art and commercial art worlds. Her current series, defined by meticulously structured square compositions, embodies a modern approach to classical inspirations, creating depth and movement within each canvas.

Detail, Pixelisa II, Oil on Canvas

Despite her successful career in branding and design, Irina Paba's heart has always been in the fine arts. Her journey took a significant turn in 1995, when she was accepted into a juried group show at the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale. A year later, she co-founded Designapolis with her partner, now husband and fellow artist, a venture that has remained a cornerstone of her creative life. Her achievements in branding never overshadowed her love for fine art, leading her to return to painting with renewed focus and passion.

Her current body of work is deeply rooted in a style she calls "Pixelism," a fusion of traditional oil painting techniques with the fragmented aesthetic of digital imagery. Her reinterpretations of masterpieces, such as Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, offer a contemporary take on classical works. In her celebrated piece, Pixelisa, she reimagines da Vinci's iconic subject through a grid of painted squares, each layered with varying degrees of opacity and saturation—some nearly transparent, others built up with as many as ten layers of oil paint. The result is an image that only fully emerges from a distance, inviting the viewer to step back and experience the harmony of color and form. Similarly, in Girl with a Pixel Earring, Vermeer's masterpiece is broken down into essential hues and tones, reconstructed through methodical brushwork that challenges perception.

"Each brushstroke is a memory pixel, a fragment of time captured in color. Up close, the world sometimes seems chaotic; only from a distance does the image resolve into clarity." -Paba

Drawing inspiration from surrealists like Salvador Dalí, the hyper-realism of Chuck Close, the conceptual playfulness of René Magritte, and the large-scale, epic works of Artemisia Gentileschi. Irina Paba has carved out a distinctive voice within contemporary painting. Her fascination with the classics and an appreciation for modern digital aesthetics result in a body of work that bridges past and present, tradition and innovation..

Paba at work in her studio

Irina Paba studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in Saint Louis, and the School of Visual Arts in New York. This diverse education laid the foundation for her multidisciplinary approach and lifelong commitment to the arts. Beyond painting, Paba continually expands her artistic practice through digital art, drawing, and printmaking. Outside her studio and design company, she is an avid writer and bibliophile, with passions for travel, museum visits, Formula One racing, and time spent with her family.