On Archives and Reworking the Image: Paulina Freifeld
Artist Paulina Freifeld sits in her neighborhood park on the Lower East Side, between a playground, chain-link fences, and patches of worn grass. The setting felt quietly aligned with her work - a space shaped by movement and history. We spoke with Paulina about her process, her relationship to the archive, and the shifts currently unfolding in her practice.
1. Is there a new method, process, or direction you’re currently exploring in the studio that feels especially exciting to you?
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with removing figures from the archival photographs I use as references for my paintings. By erasing the people, the image becomes less about portraiture and more about distortion, the ecosystem, and the emotional residue of a place. The spaces, objects, and gestures that remain start to carry more weight, almost like they’re holding onto something that’s no longer visible. It’s been pushing me to think about how narratives can exist without a central subject, and how memory can feel both specific and anonymous at the same time.
2. Is there a common thread between the things that consistently draw your attention or spark your curiosity?
Most of my work begins with archival family photographs, especially those taken in Mexico City, which feel like both personal documents and fragments of a larger cultural history. I’m drawn to images that already carry a sense of time.
Alongside that, I look a lot at film stills and the work of photographers, particularly Mexican photographers, who capture atmosphere in a way that feels emotionally charged but understated. Across all of these references, there’s usually a tension between reality and construction, images that feel familiar but also a little uncanny. That in-between space is what I keep coming back to.
3. How does your heritage inform both your personal style and your artistic practice?
My heritage is deeply embedded in the source material of my work. A lot of the imagery comes from my family archive, so there’s an inherent connection to place, architecture, light, and cultural context. At the same time, I’m interested in how those images shift once they’re reinterpreted through painting, especially as someone who grew up between Mexico and the U.S. There’s a sense of translation, distance, and adaptation.
In terms of personal style, I feel it’s something that’s accumulative over time. I wear a lot of my mom’s old clothes, which feels like another kind of archive. Something lived-in that carries history. I think both in my work and in how I dress, I’m drawn to things that already have a past, that feel slightly worn or displaced, and that can be recontextualized into something new.
About the Artist
Paulina Freifeld (b. 1998) is a Mexican American director and painter based in New York City. Raised between Mexico City and San Diego, she studied at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Her work, defined by a surrealist, handmade aesthetic and darkly whimsical narratives, moves fluidly between painting, film, and various media.
Across her practice, Freifeld explores themes of value, transformation, and fragility, often drawing on symbolism related to currency, material exchange, and the natural world. Her work reflects on systems of worth, both economic and emotional, while foregrounding environmental undercurrents and the tension between extraction and preservation. Freifeld has presented solo exhibitions with Concordia Studio in Mexico City, at NADA Art Fair in Miami, and at Will Shott Gallery in New York.
Her work has been recognized in publications including Vogue México, Forbes, and Impulse, establishing her as a distinctive voice within contemporary art. She has also participated in group exhibitions with institutions and galleries like David Zwirner, and ICA Miami.