The most recent creations by Eugenia Maggi propose a connection with dreamlike and ethereal worlds: shapes, colours, movements accompanied by sounds that represent a soft, harmonic and light dimension of existence. They invite calm, to live in the present moment, to meditation and self-knowledge.
Her illustrations oscillate in the spectrum of visionary and psychedelic art, with an altruistic imprint: the search for healing and transformation, both personally and for those who encounter her work.
“I trust in the power to change our life circumstances by changing the way we think”, is one of the mantras of her artistic expressiveness and also a philosophy of her life.
The path that brought her here was built through intense experiences, the investigation of the psyche, meditation and some transcendental experiences with sacred plants, mushrooms and psychedelic therapies.
The inner girl who seizes the pencil and loses track of time every time she draws, Eugenia grew up surrounded by rivers and a markedly wild ecosystem, considering the short distance that separates her from the capital of Argentina. In the Tigre Delta, the islanders move in boats, there are no streets or paths that connect each of the islands, and the special climate of this wetland has favoured the presence of plant and animal species from subtropical environments in a southern region.
In that environment some things were missing, but the gifts were a great connection with nature and an uncensored invitation to let your imagination run wild. Her father had shamanic training, he played the tarot and was her first teacher in this art that she practices today and has integrated into her creative universe.
Her mother, an actress, felt at that time a special ability to connect with beings from other dimensions or extraterrestrials, so that mystical and supernatural experiences were recurring themes during her childhood.
The magic of the island was later manifested with the arrival of Jorge Gumier Maier, who moved to the same creek when Eugenia was 17 years old.
She did not know it yet, but she had met a very important Argentine artist and curator, who promoted a space in the Rojas Cultural Center that was the most important art gallery of the '90s in Buenos Aires.
Jorge suggested that she be his assistant, Eugenia began working in his workshop and collaborated with his samples for several years. Together they painted pieces of wood or plastic that the tide brought and he rescued, but at that time she had a very figurative and realistic interpretation of art, and she did not understand what Jorge was doing, she thought it was crazy.
When she finally attended the exhibition of what he did with all the items she collected from the river, the idea of art that she had flew through the air.
She found a totally different aesthetic concept: she tapped into an unimagined sensory delight in discovering that you could create beauty from something completely abstract and build new things from there.
Jorge not only marked a milestone in her artistic path and in her aesthetic perspective, but he became her family and one of the most important people in her life.
During those same years, within the framework of formal education, he studied Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, where he acquired new tools and techniques of expression.
Later, she trained as a Web Master and motivated to achieve an economic livelihood that would overcome the scarcity of her first years of life, she enrolled in the Advertising career, although that environment was not comfortable for her and she interrupted those studies a few subjects after graduating.
She then carried out a transforming workshop with the plastic artist Paula Duró, also in Buenos Aires, which provided her with a very free space where each one developed her artistic projects.
Based on the tarot that she learned from her father, she studied the technique of Alejandro Jodorovsky, a Chilean writer and filmmaker who uses the Marseille tarot cards as a therapeutic tool for psychological self-knowledge and to heal, without seeking to predict the future. .
Later he was trained as a companion of Evolutive Breathing, a practice close to meditation or mindfulness that uses conscious breathing and inquiry techniques, aimed at self-discovery, creativity and the integration of thoughts and emotions, in order to live more present, healthy and connected with our desires and purposes.
Already in adulthood, her mother, who suffered from schizophrenia, left the house where she lived and to this day they continue to look for her. It is an episode that left a strong mark on her history.
Eugenia entered a state of deep depression and, following the recommendation of traditional medicine, she was treated with psychoactive drugs, but she felt dull and absent. Faced with the possibility of being trapped in that circle, alternative therapies emerged as a way out.
Guided by a shaman, she participated in a ceremony a sacred plant from the Amazon characterized by seeking the expansion of consciousness. The trip was very strong and provided him with a deep healing, of great transmutation of pain, with visual experiences where deities were presented that made him feel protection, infinite love and that his existence had meaning.
Many of the images in his work have to do with this expression of love and the guides that appeared on that journey. This transformative experience also allowed him to make the decision to see the world, leave his native country and head to New Zealand.
From then on, trips to different regions began to be more frequent, including Southeast Asia and much of Europe.
He has lived for several years in London, where he worked for a time as an artist in Camden Market, and then in Barcelona, where he currently resides.
Thus, travel became one of his main sources of inspiration, the various forms of deities and spiritual guides of the cultures of each region, as well as the fauna and flora, which are very present in his work, generate a lot of peace and represent at the same time, a great refuge.
Also experimentation with psychedelic therapies, mushrooms, yoga or meditation, which give him access to a deeper dimension of the mind, to the subconscious, from where a large part of the images he creates are born and are always linked to a search for fulfilment. in the present moment.
Psychomagic is another element that flies over his imagination and finding a deeper meaning to existence fascinates him. In Thailand, for example, tattoos are also elements of protection.
In the same way, Eugenia likes to think that her creations can have some power, that they can help other people or protect them, just because whoever has them chooses that they do. "And faith makes that work, like a holy card," she explains.
Through all these influences, and although she continues to go through situations of anguish, anxiety or other emotions in her daily life, Eugenia has achieved a deep confidence in the power of transformation that we have when we focus on building new ways of defining ourselves, how we think ourselves and how we treat ourselves.
“As I was being kinder to myself and treating myself with more love, I was developing a healthier bond with myself. I feel that my reality has been profoundly transformed, and it continues to happen as long as I continue to trust in it and work on myself”, she reflects.
The materials that she has used throughout her career range from pencils, watercolours, acrylics, ceramics, painting on paper or canvas, to print designs for different surfaces.
But today she works almost entirely digitally, on an iPad Pro with tools like Procreate and After Effects.
She finds that multimedia is a very friendly support to be able to create animations, incorporate music or make 3D objects.
She recently began to paste up, a street art technique that consists of leaving stickers of her illustrations in public places.
This returned a more tangible dimension to her drawings, which allows her to interact with people when she hits them, to talk, to know what causes them what they see.
And on these stickers she is also applying augmented reality, through a QR code that each illustration has, with which people can use social networks and see the filters that each of the works has.
Among her next challenges are the animation of meditations and drawing and live animation where the support is the city itself.
