Fernanda Araya Mechsner

Puerto Montt, Chile

Fernanda Araya Mechsner (born on March 5, 2001) is a Chilean visual artist and makeup artist. She was born and raised in the city of Puerto Montt, in the south of the country. In 2019, she moved to Santiago, Chile, to study visual arts at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. For her, the body is a central element in her work, serving as a support, a creative tool, and an object of representation. Through traditional and body painting, she has explored the possibilities of working with and from the body. Her work ranges from common pictorial representations to forays into film, performance, photography, and even linking the latter with installation art. Her work focuses on exploring the boundaries and intersections between the body and painting. Another thematic axis is nature and landscape, present in most of her works and life, due to her origins in southern Chile. In much of her work, she seeks to create fantasies and fictional situations that always maintain a connection with the body and the landscape. In 2023, she worked as a special effects makeup artist and created the character "Tronco" in the short film "Ducklings," directed by Isidora Barros, Matías Echeverría, and Alfonso Ferrer. She is currently part of the team at Cámbrico Films, an emerging Chilean film production company.