Her distinctly bright colors alongside her expressive brush strokes were definitely born from her Cuban roots. Some of Ayleen’s earliest memories include painting at the breakfast table with her father, a banker and an innately talented artist. Not surprisingly, the margins of Ayleen’s school notebooks were covered with portraits of classmates and still life sketches of everyday school life. Ayleen doodled her way through law school lectures and later, conference calls. The decades of drawing lay the groundwork for her paintings later in life. 

After the birth of her second child, Ayleen experienced some baby blues and felt she had lost herself in the never-ending to-do lists of motherhood and life as a lawyer. During naptime, she started escaping to her Chicago basement to paint flamingos and flowers. She initially thought she was simply searching for color and life in the dead of Chicago winter, but later realized she was actually searching for a way back to herself.

Today, Ayleen can be found in her studio, back in her hometown of Miami, FL. While her studio’s warm, morning light invites her in each day, it’s really the freedom the canvas provides that keeps her coming back. When she’s slinging paint in her studio, all the typical “shoulds” and to-do lists fall away. It’s a sacred space where she draws on the innate wisdom of childlike wonder and where the only voice that matters is her own.