Sonya Fe – Artist

Sonya’s gift as an artist became apparent early in life, one could say that she was born with a paintbrush in each hand and the ability to draw with either hand. Since preschool the cement floor of her home became her first drawing surface. Sonya has had full encouragement from her parents and seven siblings to pursue the development of her art skills. Sonya created a new drawing in chalk or crayon for family amusement and every night her masterpiece would be mopped clean by her mother. Her father took her on outings where she drew what attracted her interests: trees, animals, and people.

At the age of 13, Sonya won her first art scholarship to attend a summer program at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. Sonya Fe received her BA degree in art at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. She claims that Art Center taught her technique, how to mix colors and how to work as artist, but it did not teach her how to paint; she learned to paint by experimenting with the paint and while painting she wasn’t concern about the final product. Her mission was to learn the tools of her craft and how to convey her thoughts and feelings as best she could express them on each painting. After becoming an established artist, Sonya published children stories and a drawing book, “You Can Draw Too,” for helping students to Vasquetzal Publishers Sonya Fe illustrate their own storybooks. She is the co-founder of Publishing Children’s Stories, an intervention program integrating literacy, art and technology for elementary schools. On 1998, Sonya Fe received the National Artist Award from the California State Senate.

Sonya Fe ‘s art has enjoyed a considerable amount of popularity in Hispanic-American Movement. Every generation has their artists whose paintings capture the history of the times, our times has Sonya Fe. Her subject matter in her art evolves our culture from the inequities of gender and racial bias to a renaissance of human thought and global community.

Popular art magazines have documented Sonya Fe’s artwork such Forbe’s Sunstorm Magazine, Sacramento Magazine, and Sixteen Sixteen Magazine. Contemporary Chicana/Chicano Art: Artists, Works, Culture, and Education wrote about Sonya Fe’s art: “Looking at the actual canvas, one is struck by the unexpected beauty of the paint application itself. Every part of the surface is luminous – even the browns and the blacks of the shadows. When the artist facets a form in the tradition of Cezanne or Picasso, she is describing not merely planes, but also the effect of light on them. Sometimes her form is volumetric and transparent at the same time – a technical tour de force which any painter is obliged to respect. The images seem to glow with inner radiance. Indeed, the whole picture seems to be a collage of transparent tissues.”

Her artwork has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States. Currently, she has an art exhibit, “Brushes of Fire” at the Temporary Gallery in Sacramento, California. Her work can be found in numerous private and public collections: CCR Pounder and Cheech Marín and Smithsonian Institute. Along with other muralists, Sonya Fe was commissioned to assist with the restoration of the Great Wall of Los Angels.

Sonya Fe is an exuberant person with a big personality. She has amused television and radio audiences with her quite sense of humor and zest for life. Upon admiring Sonya Fe paintings one reaches the conclusion that certain truths are held to be self-evident, and it is self-evident that she is a gifted artist.