The Archive as a Starting Point
Photo: Orlando Vega.
Mexican American artist Paulina Freifeld is moving at a steady pace. After graduating in 2022 from NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied film direction, she has quickly grown in visibility in Mexico City and New York for her paintings. Since then, she has exhibited in several group shows in prominent galleries, such as David Zwirner and adhesivo contemporary in Mexico City. Her paintings are characterized by a surrealist handmade aesthetic. She often depicts everyday life scenes surrounded by fantastic elements, like fishes flying or headless characters, creating darkly whimsical imaginative narratives. In 2025, the artist opened a new solo show, Peso del Peligro, during Mexico Art Week with Concordia until March 6th.
Montserrat Miranda Ayejes: What’s the starting point for your work?
Paulina Freifeld: I use family archives as a reference point. Since I started painting, I have often looked at images of my family in photo albums. I come from a family of immigrants who arrived in Mexico while escaping World War II, and I have always felt that history is a part of who I am, and I translate it into my practice. Themes of survival and adaptation are recurring in my work.
I also explore other types of archives, such as coins and banknotes from different countries. One of my works, Animales en Peligro de Extinción (Animals in Danger), is a lightbox depicting a Mexican coin from 2001 featuring a jaguar resting on the grass. This series of coins honored local endangered species as a way of showing respect for the local ecosystem. However, in 2018, the Mexican government started constructing the Tren Maya, and since then, thousands of jaguars have been killed, which is a paradox.
Exploring new techniques is also an important starting point for me. I am currently working with ink transfers, which allow me to create lightboxes. I never think about the start or end of a series; they simply develop on their own.
Installation view of Peso del Peligro. Courtesy of Concordia Studio.
MMA: Throughout your work, there is a constant use of imagery from Mexican culture such as well-known landscapes from different cities or traditional clothes like hats and masks. Could you tell us more about that?
PF: It came naturally. When I first started painting, I would look at images of my family in photo albums, and they were often in iconic places in Mexico, like Acapulco or Mérida. I would also find pictures of my grandfather eating traditional Mexican street food or dressed in traditional Mexican clothing. I used to paint those images, so it was only natural for that imagery to appear in my work.
At my first solo show in Mexico three years ago, I exhibited Foreigners, a series of three paintings depicting my grandmother at different moments in her life in various cities across Mexico.
Paulina Freifeld, Aguas Nubladas, 2024. Oil on linen, 48 x 72 in. Courtesy of Concordia Studio.
MMA: You have a background in film, yet you mainly work with painting now. How did you move from one medium to the other?
PF: For me, film and painting are very similar mediums. I believe my paintings have a lot of film in them. Before studying film, my paintings were static, with less movement and no narrative. I try to tell a story through my work, and that is thanks to my background in film. It’s never a linear story, but there is always a message for the audience to interpret.
MMA: One of your most recent series was inspired by the design of banknotes that depict native animals and plants from Mexico. Could you tell us more about it?
PF: I started working on this series almost two years ago. I was inspired by the banknotes released in 2018 by the Bank of Mexico, which incorporate imagery of the country’s six most important ecosystems into their designs. I created landscapes and scenarios where I combined the iconography of the banknotes with everyday scenes, intertwining the economic world with the animal and plant kingdoms.
One of my paintings, Los Pesos Flotan, depicts the bottom of the Xochimilco Canals, which were declared a World Heritage Site in 1987. In the scene, two axolotls, a native species of the area, swim among aquatic plants and banknotes that blend into the landscape. In the background, a fifty pesos sign floats as if it were an oxygen bubble. Unlike the real canals, the painting features different shades of pink, referencing the pink 50 pesos banknote that includes the axolotl and its environment in its design. Today, the Xochimilco Canals have become so touristy that axolotls no longer live there; instead, they survive in hatcheries away from the area.
Animals, like humans, adapt to new conditions, and I’ve been interested in that. I believe the experience of an animal is similar to the human experience.
Paulina Freifeld, Los Pesos Flotan, 2024. Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 in. Courtesy of Concordia Studio.
MMA: You are currently having a solo show, Peso del Peligro, with Concordia in Mexico City, where you are presenting this last series of work. How was the experience of creating this exhibition?
PF: I met Danielle Juliao, the founder of Concordia Studio last year during a collective show in New York where I was presenting four works of this series. After some meetings, we started planning this solo show, which opened during Mexico City Art Week.
It was a challenge for me to think about the layout of the paintings and lightboxes. We worked with two architects on the exhibition design. As it was a warehouse, we wanted to emulate how relics from past civilizations are showcased in an anthropology museum. I wanted to present these animals and their ecosystems as relics that must be appreciated and preserved.
Installation view of Peso del Peligro. Courtesy of Concordia Studio.
MMA: Do you have any other projects on the horizon?
PF: This show was the beginning of something bigger. I will keep exploring the relationship between animals, human activity, and the archive. These animals had to adapt and survive to changes in their environment. I feel that it is connected with my personal history. My family had to move and adapt to a new reality as well.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Edited by Xuezhu Jenny Wang
