Claudia A. Escobar is a talented Colombian visual artist currently based in San Francisco, California. Over the past 15 years, Claudia has produced, directed, filmed, and edited videos for KQED/PBS, Aljazeera, Mission Local, The New York Times, National Geographic, MSNBC, independent documentaries, music videos, and award-winning experimental films.
From a young age, Claudia discovered drawing and painting as a way to find a connecting thread to a magical and fantastical world. These forms of artistic expression became a refuge, allowing her to escape the violence that plagued Medellín, Colombia during the 1980s and 1990s, a time when the city and the country were deeply affected by brutal violence that left a profound wound, forever changing the nation.
After moving to the United States in 2004, Claudia encountered documentary filmmaking, or rather, it found her. Since then, she has embarked on a journey of exploring her new home, its people, and the stories of other migrants who, like her, have experienced life as undocumented individuals, with all its complexities, sorrows, hardships, joys, and experiences in an unfamiliar land.
Being a migrant is to live a life filled with beauty and melancholy, a unique experience that Claudia skillfully portrays in her artistic work.
In recent years, Claudia has embarked on a new adventure, searching for those invisible threads that connect us all to our homelands, our ancestors, and the lands and territories we come from. Through a more poetic and fantastical narrative, she immerses herself in the depths of the waters from which the beings in her illustrations emerge. In doing so, she connects her own life story with the magic and the timeless, boundless of the dream world.
In addition to her career in documentary journalism and video production over the past 13 years, Claudia has also cultivated her own artistic practice, creating animations and illustrations that delve into her own inquiries about the magic and invisible worlds of the dreamland.
Currently, Claudia serves as a creative producer at the Oakland Museum in California, where she continues to develop her talent and creativity. She is also immersed in the development phase of her new film, where she is jumping from he documentary world to a more fictional story telling.
Claudia continues to explore new forms of artistic expression and eagerly looks forward to sharing her unique vision with the world. Her work continues to evolve and push her artistic boundaries.
