Vilma Mooradian Tawilian

I have been making things my whole life. Not as a hobby — as a necessity. First came drawing, then painting, then the formal education that gave language to what my hands already knew. I studied at CalArts, FIDM, and ArtCenter in Pasadena, three schools that each asked something different from me — and gave something different back."

At a young age, I painted an eight-foot-by-five-foot Persian bath scene — acrylic on paper. I didn't know then that this was unusual. I just knew I needed the space.

I went on to win awards in miniature painting and ink and wash — the opposite of scale, where discipline lives in restraint. Both taught me the same thing from different directions: that a surface is never just a surface. It is a decision about what to include and what to leave out.

After school, I worked as a graphic designer — logos, catalogs, brand identities. From 2009, I designed shoes, then moved into exotic skin accessories, working alongside Italian artisans whose craft was entirely handmade. I learned what it means to work with rare materials and with people who have given their lives to a single skill. Watching them taught me things no school could — and brought a joy to my work I hadn't expected.

Through all of it, I never stopped painting. And I never stopped learning — from traditional canvas to digital composition, from 3D to the tools that exist today. Curiosity is the only discipline I have never had to force.

Small mosaic fragments appear in almost everything I make. Scattered geometric pieces — tiny, deliberate, ancient. I didn't plan them as a signature. They kept appearing across canvas, digital work, and photography. Eventually, I understood: my heritage was finding its way in, the way it always does — quietly, through the hands, without asking permission.

A pearl appears in many pieces of digital art and jewelry, too. Pearls are what happens when something difficult becomes something beautiful over a long period of time. That feels about right.

My work now lives across painting, digital art, photography, video, jewelry, fashion, and design — all of it collected at Encadre Rouge, the gallery I built to hold everything I make.

150+

15

CalArts Alum

Miami-Based