Leticia Maldonado is a multi media sculptor with a focus on working in luminous glass. Enamored at a young age with the violent elegance of plants and flowers taking their shape from the journey of survival, and juxtaposing that energy with a deep love for books and the symbols of personal power available within, Maldonado has cultivated a visual vocabulary that endeavors to use object making in service of poetic disruption.
The work of her life is to encourage a connection with self through use of imagination and creative destruction. She believes that connection to self is the path to fostering valuable states of character such as integrity, compassion, and independence.
Pursuing first an education in figurative illustration and sequential story telling, Leticia spent time at The Art Institute of LV, and later studied at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art. Growing up and spending her formative years in the desert outskirts of Las Vegas, NV, it was an easy step to associate the neon lights of the city with the concepts of escape and autonomy. Moving into this medium, Maldonado eventually found her way to Lili Lakich’s neon design and fabrication classes, and later studied glass bending and processing with the artist Michael Flechtner. Using illuminated glass sculpture as a primary medium since 2013, Maldonado chooses to focus on working with the smallest diameter glass available in order to achieve as much detail as possible in her expression.
Art has always served the purpose of connection in her life, both to herself through process and to strangers through exhibitions. Landmarks would include being curated into the She Bends collective, a traveling exhibition of all female identifying benders working in neon, and Construyendo Puentes a show of Chicano artists from Los Angeles, which traveled throughout Mexico. In She Bends, curated by Meryl Pataky, Leticia had the chance to connect with an entire community of neon sculptors espousing the tenant of community over competition. In Construyendo Puentes, curated by Julian Bermudez, the experience was a chance to connect more strongly to the in-between place of existing equally in two cultures and having to carve out and own a blended identity.
Though preferring to focus on personal projects, Maldonado can count among her clients, Life is Beautiful festival, The Standard Hotel, Viceland, Google, Superfrico LV and Apple Music. Leticia Maldonado lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
