Daniela Achoyan
- Anna Lilli Garai
- 1 day ago
- 6 min read
Daniela Achoyan is a painter based in Buenos Aires. She worked as a graphic designer before turning more seriously to painting. Her work starts with color and develops over time. She presents her paintings in solo and group exhibitions in Argentina and internationally.
In our interview, she talks about moving from design to painting, how color guides her studio process, and how a painting finds its direction over time.
Q: How did your path from graphic design to painting begin?
A: My path wasn’t a direct one. It wasn’t that I left graphic design in order to dedicate myself to painting. Several things happened in between. But what’s most interesting about that process is what motivated it. Working as a graphic designer had worn me out, and I no longer found pleasure in it. I loved—and still love—design, but I had stopped feeling comfortable working in that field.
At a certain point, I realized that what I truly wanted was to begin consciously and gradually designing the kind of life I wished to live. And within that design, work needed to occupy a central place as a space of enjoyment, something charged with desire. It wasn’t simply about changing professions, but about shifting design from a strictly professional plane to a vital one. That understanding is what slowly led me toward painting.
It was more a path of discovery than a premeditated plan. I hadn’t intended to become a painter, but I did know that I didn’t want to continue devoting so many hours of my life to something I no longer desired to do. And in that process of searching for how to design my life, painting appeared—almost with complete logic. I already came from a deeply visual background: for many years I had been drawn to form, to color—especially color—to visual languages, to the visual world in general.
The idea of having almost absolute freedom to create within those universes felt like an extraordinary plan. Dedicating part of my life to the pursuit of beauty feels deeply compelling to me. Beauty seduces me in countless ways. Today, more than ever, in the historical context we are living in, searching for, creating, and finding beauty feels like a revolutionary act. A desire to live. Bringing something of paradise into this present world feels important to me.
Q: What made you decide to leave design and focus fully on your own work?
A: In a way, this question is already answered in the previous one. The decision was rooted in the need to find pleasure in my work, to stop spending at least eight hours a day resenting what I was doing. But it was also an affirmation: the need to commit to my own work and to a way of life more aligned with my desires.
I was seeking the freedom to shape my life on my own terms, to not be dependent on others’ instructions, to make decisions about my time and energy. The possibility to create, to develop my own voice, and to devote myself to something that connects me with more instinctive and essential layers of myself. Finding something like that is a true gift.
Q: When you start a new painting, what usually comes first for you?
A: The first thing I focus on is the color palette. I think about the atmosphere, the mood—where I am, what I’m painting for, what I want to work with. Throughout the process, that palette can change radically, shift in more subtle ways, or even coexist with another palette that appears later on. It doesn’t function as a fixed decision, but rather as the initial impulse, the first thread that begins to orient what the painting will become.
Q: You often begin without a clear plan. How do you sense that a painting is finding its direction?
A: To be honest, it usually takes me quite a while. In most cases—with a few exceptions where the direction appears more clearly and almost immediately—finding it takes time. During a long painting process, the possible directions a work can take tend to multiply, and choosing which one to follow isn’t easy.
That’s why I work with many layers: I change direction from time to time as new possibilities emerge and begin to seduce me. The difficulty is that this path can become almost infinite, and at some point more decisive choices need to be made. Knowing when a direction begins to assert itself isn’t a rational matter, but a sensitive one: it has to do with a feeling of alignment, of coherence, of something starting to come together. Deciding is never easy, but years of practice help.
Q: Your paintings sit between abstraction and figuration. How do you decide how far to go in either direction?
A: The only limitation is my technical ability. I don’t have training in drawing, and I don’t feel at ease with it. If I did, I have no doubt my painting would be more figurative—I love figurative painting. In the meantime, I find it very compelling to discover something close to figuration within my own mark-making.
There is also a technical aspect that comes into play, related to specific decisions in each painting: how far I want the brushstroke to define recognizable forms, and how far I prefer it to function as a loose gesture, suggesting more than it names.
Q: Color plays a central role in your art. How do you choose the palette for a painting?
A: As I mentioned earlier, choosing a palette is often connected to the mood I’m in. But I also find inspiration constantly, both in nature and in certain framings of everyday life—small excerpts shaped by my own way of looking, in a specific context and moment. Many times, if I have my phone at hand, I photograph them so I can later bring them into the studio.
At the same time, the palette often emerges from the challenges I set for myself. When I feel I’m not entirely at ease or fluent with a particular color, I try to give myself the opportunity to work with it and make room for practice. In general, I tend to work with fairly bright palettes. Lately, however, I’ve been strongly drawn to the challenge of working with more opaque, less saturated palettes, with different tonal values. I’m very seduced by those palettes as well, but I feel I haven’t yet fully incorporated them in a way that allows me to handle them with real agility.
Q: Your brushwork feels both controlled and open. How do you work with that tension?
A: Where the brushwork is more controlled is where I want to create a point of tension—where I want the viewer’s gaze to settle, where I want to tell more. The brushwork feels more open when I want the painting to breathe, when I want to create space. And also when I want to connect things, to build paths through the surface.
Q: You also work with ceramics and collaborations. How do these experiences influence the way you create?
A: I’ve done very little of this so far, especially when it comes to ceramics. I’m very drawn to the idea of exploring ceramics, but I haven’t yet had the time I’d like to devote the necessary energy to it. What excites me is the possibility of encountering a new materiality and seeing whether something of my painterly language can unfold there. How does my painting translate into ceramics? What remains? What falls away? What new elements appear? I’d love to find the time to truly investigate these questions.
Textiles are different. What I’ve done so far has essentially involved printing, which means reproducing something that already exists. There isn’t a translation into another materiality in that sense. It’s not that I’m uninterested—on the contrary, I’m such a clothing enthusiast that seeing my imagery on garments fascinates me—but from a more strictly artistic point of view, my interest in textiles would be closer to the path I imagine for ceramics: exploring formats like rugs or tapestries, for example.
Q: Themes like transience and sensation come up in your exhibitions. How do they find their way into the work as you paint?
A: I’m very interested in what happens with movement. For me, the practice of painting has a lot to do with dance. When I’m painting, I try to find something choreographic in the brushstroke. That’s why I generally work on large formats and on the floor—I need to move, to involve my body in relation to space. Sometimes I dance while I paint, sometimes with my body, sometimes with the brush.
Music, of course, also plays a fundamental role in shaping stimulation. I try to choose it with the same rigor with which I choose a palette. And when I don’t feel in tune with it, I prefer to work in silence. So I imagine that something of all this—movement, cadence, and the senses—ends up being reflected in the painting.
Q: What are you interested in exploring next?
A: For now, I feel I need to continue exploring the path I’m currently on—a path that, I believe, clearly began around the middle of last year. It’s a path centered on pushing the possibilities of brushwork: its character, its relationship with color, and everything that can be articulated through them.
This exploration happens both on a technical level—seeking the right tools to build what I want to build—and on an aesthetic one. I still feel there’s a journey ahead there, one that will take me, as it always does, where it needs to take me. I tend to let myself be guided.
