Marcia

Marcia Diaz Agudelo is a Colombian-born Toronto-based illustrator. Diaz Agudelo has always loved drawing, and she involved herself in extracurricular drawing, painting and sculpting classes during her formative years. She received a BA in Design from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, where she also studied Anthropology and Art History. Diaz Agudelo always wanted to be an illustrator; however, in university, she delved into subjects such as social justice issues, participatory design and design thinking; these disciplines and her Latin-American roots have informed her practice, both as a designer and as an illustrator.

Diaz Agudelo brings colourful, energetic and complex subjects together in all of her pieces. She is interested in talking about social issues through her illustrations; as a creative exercise, she creates illustrations about the daily news, believing illustrations have the power to make complex themes approachable and understandable.

She uses geometric and simple shapes to create characters, scenes and concepts. Her work has been described as vibrant and colourful and she believes it adapts to different themes, from children’s illustrations to editorial illustrations. She mostly uses Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to create her illustrations, leading to clean shapes and textures.

Diaz Agudelo loves working with bright colours but also tries using a limited palette in all of her works, aiming not to exceed 5 or 6 colours. She consistently varies her use of colour, exploring multiple avenues in order to avoid a formulaic approach.