SESSIONS COLLEGE FOR PROFESSIONAL DESIGN
Maria Jose Nunez Bonequi is a digital artist from Mexico City but currently lives in North Carolina. Her passion for art started a long time ago when she was just a little girl, her grandmother used to make handmade decorations and paintings and introduced Maria to the art world. It wasn’t until she was 12 that she decided to take art more seriously and took several art classes during middle school when she moved to Argentina. Years later she was determined to become a professional digital artist and moved to the United States to pursue her dream and enrolled in Sessions College. Maria is currently registered for an Associate Degree in Illustration and is about to graduate this upcoming spring of 2023. Her favorite medium is digital art, she specializes in Illustrator and Procreate but she also masters traditional mediums like watercolors, acrylics, and ink. Her plans after graduation are to start her career as a freelance illustrator that focuses merely on comic books, children’s books, and background illustrations. However, she is also planning on creating a comic book or an animated show of her own!
WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL INSPIRED?
I think I take a lot of inspiration from my heritage, my art has been influenced a lot by Aztec and Mayan cultures. Their legends, their gods, their traditions . . . all of them are so unique and my art is directly, and indirectly, influenced by them.
WHAT ARE YOU READING/LISTENING TO/WATCHING?
I am currently reading the Popol Vuh, a book that contains several Mayan texts, listening to the album Trench by Twenty One Pilots, and watching Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro.
WHO IS SOMEONE YOU LOOK UP TO IN YOUR FIELD?
Someone I look up to is the concept artist Mary Blair, she worked in several Disney classics like Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella. The way she transmitted mood through her artworks is simply mesmerizing.
