A Closer View of Artist Serena Dominguez
Fun loving artist and Miami native, Serena Dominguez, has made a career out of doodling. She created this months giant concert poster for The Thermals show at Respectable Street!
Starting at a young age, Dominguez took her propensity for doodling all the way to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) where she received the Bachelor of Fine Arts for her work there. “I was always a doodler, in school especially. It felt natural to go to art school and now, here I am.”
Dominguez works primarily in ink pen drawings and focuses on a subject matter that is as honest as it is amusing. “I’m inspired by imperfections in general – static AM radio, banged-up old things, kitschy things, clustered things, funny little things. I’m kind of a hoarder of useless trinkets.”
Dominguez brings to life the personalities of people, places and things she finds remarkable in her illustrations and vignettes, portraits that fade seamlessly into her very detailed and often stellar backgrounds. Though ink drawings make up the majority of Dominguez’s portfolio, the artist does not limit her creative talent to solely pen and paper. Between her profile website, serenadominguez.com, and her Facebook and 
Tumblr accounts, Dominguez offers more than 100 pictures of her original works spanning from sculpted installation art to a self-portrait of the young artist worked into a slice of burnt toast.
Dominguez’s art can be viewed in person both wheatpasted outside of Gramp’s Bar in Miami’s Wynwood Art District (home to over 70 galleries, museums and artistic collections) and exhibited in the Gesamtkunstwerk Gallery, where the artist recently celebrated her first solo showing. Of Dominguez’s favorites at the exhibition, “Jungle Mayo” depicts a highly detailed jungle scene with a bottle of mayonnaise planted smack dab in the middle. Pieces like ‘Jungle Mayo’ show off Dominguez’s ability to blend various movements in art culture like pop art and surrealism. The Gesamtkunstwerk exhibition will run from now until November 23rd of this year.
“Anything that comes my way!” says Dominguez when asked about upcoming projects. “I’m currently doing some album art for a friend’s band and making illustrations for a book about wild fruits and veggies in Florida. I have a few personal projects I’m working on as well – so far they make me laugh.”
Whether it is comedic cartoon depictions of life’s everyday oddities or classic looking portraits that tickle your fancy, Dominguez offers something for every type of sketch art lover. Giving hope to every young doodler out there, Serena Dominguez is an individual definitely deserving of a closer view.
~Danielle DiSpigna
