Artist and Designer Marcela Cabrera Joins the Licensing World
Marcela Cabrera is an intensely creative artist, designer and an entrepreneur inspired by her love for culture, illustration, design, fashion, learning, global travel, and a rich creative life. She is a storyteller who combines perfectly-honed art and design skills to devise eye-catching images from abstract to figurative using a strong sense of color and texture.
Her work fits three stylistic categories: Abstract Expressionism, Figurativism and Children’s Illustration.
She uses a diverse toolkit ranging from watercolor, gouache, acrylics, ink, color pencils, photography, objects and other mixed media materials, which she combines using traditional and digital techniques such as drawing, painting, stamping, shibori, collaging, sashiko, glass fusion, tie-dye, metal work, photoshop, illustrator, procreate, among others.
DAHLO’s original Abstract Expressionism Surface Design style depicts subjects such as (real-life scenes and stories, animals, objects, people, pop and world news) and/or uses emotions or spiritual states as inspiration for creation (Happy, Sad, Love, Fear, Freedom, Joy, etc.). She uses this form of expression with an emphasis on varying measures of abstraction. She often takes the canvas off of the easel and uses unconventional materials such as house paint, musical instrument parts, hardware, fabric, gold leaf, etc. She creates art by playing with materials and techniques in innovative ways, resulting in stunning surface design patterns which can be used in gifts, home decor or wall art.
Her background and extensive training in analytic and figure drawing has made DAHLO a strong visual storyteller and a Figurative Artist with the ability to create visuals depicting any real-life (realistic) imagery: from animals, florals, nature, people to everyday household objects. She has created visual campaigns for The American Red Cross displaying the community and the services they provide, Iconography art The Fresh Market displaying in-store experiences, Brand graphics for Convera Financial for their UI design system, marketing campaigns for Pokemon Nintendo Power for The PC Gamer Magazine campaign, as well as Journey User Experience visuals for companies such as Aspera Software, Lavazza Coffee and IBM, among others.
She is looking forward to introducing her kids’ illustration aesthetic into the world of licensing, a field not yet explored by her outside her children’s books work. Marcela Cabrera is the recipient of the IBBY and National Public Library awards for her children’s book illustration work, and has published many children’s books for Ediciones Ekaré, MonteAvila Editores and Playco in Venezuela; Houghton Mifflin Co, Merrilane Press, Silver Dolphin Books, Andrews & McMeel and Cricket Magazine in the United States. Her watercolor art has been displayed in Disney Imagineer Wall products and The Animal Kingdom Park in the US. She is featured in the dictionary of Latin American illustrators and the Switzerland National Library. As a video game artist and award-winning art director (video games, packaging and promotions) she has produced art and the artistic vision for brands such as Barbie Rapunzel (Mattel), The Simpsons (Vivendi Universal Games), PacMan (Namco Bandai Games), JumpStart (Knowledge Adventure), MLB Trade-Up (Snap TV), among others.
DAHLO is a bass guitar musician who plays with combos around her Northern CA Bay Area. She has an eclectic taste in music including blues, latin, rock, pop, techno and swing: She is currently learning the music of the Beatles and wants to play their portfolio live on-stage someday with a band as tribute to their artistry: Her designs are catchy like a hot pop song and layered like a cool concept album.
“My inner child is very much alive and well…I am curious by nature and have a child-like sense of wonder. I love artistic experimentation and I like to use my infinite palette of tools and vocabulary to unleash my creativity and communicate my ideas in many forms of expression.” — Marcela Cabrera
