Meet Digital Graffiti Alys Beach Artist - María Sánchez Fernández

Our second year covering Media for Digital Graffiti Alys Beach and we're totally honored to feature a super talented Artist here! Meet Maria Sánchez Fernández. Maria is a SCAD alumni with a Masters degree in Motion Media Design, and Spanish Motion and Graphic Designer based in Madrid. Her interests revolve around breaking visual trends, anti-modernism and obsolete techniques. Digital Graffiti is also curated by John Collette: Professor of Motion Media Design at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Together, John and his students blend their imaginations and expertise to transform Alys Beach into another world unlike anything your eyes have seen through projection mapping.

If you didn't get the chance to see her work in person, projected on some of Alys Beach's crisp white architecture, press play on the video below and take in her kaleidoscope of colors and shapes!

What is the inspiration behind your work "Soil 08" at Digital Graffiti?

Soil 08 is part of a bigger project called Soil. That project was inspired by Baudrillard's essay Simulations and what it meant to me when I read the piece during the Fall 2021 quarter at SCAD. If we live in the hyperreal and all of our foundations as a society are no longer based in reality, and have become mere models, transcendence is erased from the map -at least from my map. Soil is an iterative experimental project in which each stage is built from the former one, eliminating the need for a final, refined, transcendental product. Soil 08 is the last of these iterations, a result of remixing the results of the previous stages.

How did you get involved/discover Digital Graffiti?

Soil was my final project as a Motion Media Design masters student at SCAD. I chose John Colette as my final project professor because I wanted to get involved in projection mapping, and had experience with this technique with past iterations of the project.Professor Colette thought I could do a new Soil iteration specifically for Digital Graffiti, which was a really exciting way to further extend the project’s reach.

Being based In Spain, what made you want to pursue a Masters at Savannah College of Art and Design?

It all started in 2017 when I became interested in Motion Media. That happened almost at the same time that I was introduced to the Fulbright program. I did some research on where to get the best education in Motion Graphics, and that happened to be SCAD, so it all made sense. I was really persistent and applied three times for the Fulbright scholarship, and once I received, I immediately enrolled in SCAD in 2020.

How did you get started in projection landscaping?

I have always been interested in how motion media interacts with events and spaces, however, I used to believe projection mapping was too technical for my skill set. It was actually thanks to a workshop that the people at Momelove organized that I realized I could succeed in mapping.

What are your future goals?

I would like to set up my own motion design studio in Spain. We have great studios here, but I believe we have an untapped talent pool who do not need to go abroad in order to fulfill their careers. Spain has a rich ecosystem of talent that I hope to be a voice and resource for.

Did you always know you wanted to be an artist?

Yes, but I did not know what kind of artist I wanted to be. I did not have the urge to express myself through art at first, but I loved solving problems creatively. Just a couple of years before going to college I discovered motion media design and it all just clicked.

You can connect with Maria on her website and Instagram. Thank you again to Digital Graffiti Alys Beach and SCAD for giving us the opportunity to share these talents! More coming soon!