Carolyna DeSoto

Carolyna DeSoto is an artist, Minneapolis Public schools nurse, and a motherspecializing in Acrylic paintings on canvas, water color, and mixed media sculptures.

DeSoto of Chilean descent was raised in Northern Minnesota. Her mother is Chilean, maternal grandmother is Mapuche; an indigenous group from Chile, and her father is from Minnesota. Carolyna is a graduate of Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design. She did her Art internships at the Medical Arts division at the Veteran’s Hospital in Denver Colorado in 1990, and in the Art department of Westward Magazine in 1991.

Most of her paintings have been in Acrylic medium. Carolyna had been inspired and influenced by colorful folk art, pre-Columbian artifacts and spiritual beliefs, Women’s studies, Anatomy, Indigenous folklore, Shamans and by the Artist Frida Kahlo. Carolyna uses vibrant colors with the belief that the colors project energy.

“Painting is a spiritual experience for me; I tend to forget about other things like hunger, or time when I paint as I am so focused almost like meditation during my creation. Every painting I create I consider like a birth and my paintings are my babies”.