Idea The Artist is a Guatemalan-American singer, songwriter, painter, and writer currently living in the Pacific Northwest United States. Her crystalline vocals soar over lush arrangements and captivating lyricism, creating vivid soundscapes rooted in a love of the mythic, triumphant, and bittersweet.
As a bicultural magical-realism artist, she explores the in-between in every medium, always conveying a sense of otherworldliness and wonder. Her paintings celebrate the magic of the ordinary, of resilience, and hope. As an Archaeologist and Folklorist, her work is fused with history and myth, and revolves around an anthropological understanding of essential humanity.
Since 2008, she has released multiple full-length records of her own, while also contributing vocals, piano, guitar, and cello to many other projects across the US and Europe.
See her next gallery show, “Entre Dos Mundos,” at Multnomah Arts Center in February, 2026: a collection of paintings exploring present-day Maya and how their traditions, beliefs, and resilience persist and thrive in a colonial world. A deeply thoughtful reflection not only of the Maya, but of her own position of privilege and upbringing as a Guatemalan living between-two-worlds.
DISCOGRAPHY
The Northern Lights Are On
2012
Produced, recorded, mixed and mastered by Joby Baker at Baker Studios Ltd in Victoria BC.
the Seafloor
2015
Produced, recorded by Shane McKillop at Lemonyard Studios in Los Angeles, CA. Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Bijan Sharifi at Sharifi Audio in Berkeley, CA.
Inés and Redemption
2008-2010
Produced by Shane McKillop