Emilia Cantor in 5 Questions

Emilia Cantor’s paintings exist in a space where the familiar tilts slightly off-kilter. Humanoid figures, fantastical animals, and shadowy abstractions populate her surreal canvases, each rendered in her signature palette of magentas, purples, and stark blacks. Though her dark contemporary art is rooted in traditional oil painting techniques, refined through her training at the Florence Academy of Art, it leans toward something altogether more modern—colours reminiscent of digital screens, compositions that feel like fragments of a larger, unknowable narrative.

Cantor’s influences are clear: Odd Nerdrum, Hieronymus Bosch, and Francisco Goya’s Black Paintings—artists who understood the tension between the seen and the suggested. But there is something distinctly her own in the way she builds these worlds, pushing the viewer to confront what they think they recognise, only to make them question it. Here, she reflects on five themes that have shaped her dark contemporary art practice, from unexpected sources of inspiration to the painting that changed everything, in conversation with Belinda Seppings.

What’s the strangest place you’ve ever found inspiration?

A TikTok reel of a farmer riding a cow in Guanacaste. It set something off—I thought, why not have my witches ride the pink cows I’ve been painting? That idea became Montaraces (translated as Rangers), a recent painting featuring dark mystics on pink cattle.

Emilia Cantor, Montaraces, Oil on canvas

2. Was there a moment you realised art was what you had to do?

Yes. My family didn’t allow me to study art after school. But my best friend in Venezuela was the son of María Rivas—the legendary singer. She noticed I was always drawing and told me outright to rebel, to pursue what was obviously my path. Life is only lived once, she said. That struck me.

Back then, the internet was raw, but I started researching art schools in Europe. I compiled all the information, applied in secret, and when I was accepted to a school in Florence, I handed everything to my father and said, If you don’t support this, you’ll be supporting me for the rest of your life. He saw I was serious, and a few years later, I was in Florence studying my vocation.

3. What’s the best (or strangest) reaction someone has had to your work?

My father’s. My work is dark and strange, and one day he told me, I’m scared that all of this comes from your mind and your soul.

4. If you could steal one artwork from a museum with no consequences, what would it be?

A tough choice. Probably one of Goya’s Black Paintings. He remains one of my greatest influences.

5. Is there a piece of yours where you thought, ‘That’s when something clicked’?

It would be Raven Black at Heart (2001). It was during the pandemic that I decided to paint for myself, rather than trying to make work that people would like. That honesty changed everything—my art flourished, and my career truly began. Ironically, the moment I stopped trying to make my work more “pleasant,” I started selling more.

Emilia Cantor, Raven Black at Heart, Oil on canvas

Cantor’s dark contemporary art has always been about questioning perception, but it wasn’t until she stopped making work to be liked that she found her real audience. The moment she embraced her own vision—without concern for approval—was the moment her paintings began to resonate.

Now, in addition to her own practice, she mentors emerging artists at her Atelier del Sol, Costa Rica’s first institution dedicated to classical artistic training. But she remains drawn to the unexplainable, the unsettling, the strange. “My art is dark and weird,” she admits. Her father once told her he was afraid of her dark contemporary art, what came from her mind and her soul. She took that as confirmation she was on the right path.

We look forward to following Emilia Cantor’s practice as her work gains recognition in international markets. To learn more about her paintings, visit miramefineart.com or contact Belinda Seppings.

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MÍRAME Fine Art

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