Inés Orihuela

2D Mixed Media | Painting
Hoover, AL
Website

Featured Artist

Inés Orihuela was born in Lima, Peru in 1983. She began painting and drawing when she was three years old and later went on to study theater and perform as a singer at Imagenes School in Lima. Her grandfather was an esteemed painter and teacher in Peru. She also attended drawing and painting classes at the School of Fine Arts in Lima before moving to Birmingham, Alabama in 1995 when her father was appointed Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In 1996, she became a student artist at Irondale’s Studio By The Tracks, a non-profit art studio that serves a community of adults with autism. It has been instrumental in her artistic and personal development, allowing her creativity and style to flourish. And through these many formative associations, she has grown, excelled, and fine-tuned her craft and perspective.

Today, her work is instantly recognizable and features highly stylized compositions in a wide range of subject matter personal to her. She is especially intrigued by the expressiveness, humor, flair, and surrealist nature of wildlife including pets, farm animals, and exotics; the magical splendor of plants, flowers, and landscapes; the imaginative reconstruction of familiar scenes; fantastical evocations of her childhood; explorations in self-portraiture; imaginative visions of everyday objects; a fascination with the dolls of her childhood; reinterpretations of the old masters; and collages of sophisticated and whimsical construction.

In her black ink work, she generally draws directly on paper using black ink pencils and pens. She is very patient in her process, focusing on baroque details that give her creations form, shape, and reinterpretations of reality that add a magical and surreal touch. When she creates colorful paintings, she prefers acrylics, watercolors, colored pencils, pastels, and markers. The pieces start with a pencil drawing that reimagines the muse, always preserving her personal, free, and fantastical vision through which she interprets the world and her subject’s spirit. These often take a lot of time because she is very interested in and deliberate with the color accuracy and precision of each shade. She constantly corrects and adds details until the day she has to sign a work and deliver it for exhibition. When she delves into collages, she turns to her collection of magazines, books, and prints from bookstores, newspapers, and libraries. She uses common glue and scissors, completing her compositions with strokes of acrylic paint, ballpoint pens, and words that resemble a Dadaist and surrealist poem. In these collages, she often gravitates towards and integrates images of children, expressive faces, dresses, artists she admires, wrappers from candy and other products, among others.

Despite her challenges, Inés has utilized every opportunity to become an artist of tremendous skill and talent, and she shows no sign of slowing down in her pursuit of art as a career and life choice. Her works have been included, among many others, in exhibitions at the Birmingham Museum of Art (2003), Bare Hands Gallery (2003), “Poppy and Nena: From Lima to Alabama”, University of Alabama at Birmingham (2004), FolkFest 2003 in Atlanta, the gallery of Amanda Schedler. Fine Arts (2005), Contemporary Outsider Art in America: Survey 2005 (New York, The Gallery at HAI), VSA arts of Alabama. Traveling Exhibit Selection (2008). Her paintings and critique of her work were included in the Alabama art magazine Black&White on April 20-May, 2006 (p. 20), and November 1-14, 2012 (p. 5).

PAST MOSS ROCK FESTIVAL FEATURED ARTISTS:
BLOG ANNOUNCEMENTS + FEATURED ARTIST PAGES

Back to Artists

2025 Festival

Moss Rock Festival

November 7-8, 2026