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ABOUT FLO MENA
✘ I’m a Chilean born, Los Angeles based artist working with painting, mixed media, embroidery, ceramics and intuitive processes.
My work lives at the intersection of emotion, body memory, and expression, exploring what happens when we stop performing and start listening.
I began creating long before I knew what being an artist meant. At thirteen, during a period of deep emotional difficulty, I was introduced to art therapy. Drawing and painting became the first language that felt honest, a way to communicate what I couldn’t yet explain.
That relationship with art never left. ✘
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THE LONG WAY HERE
✘ I originally studied architecture, searching for structure and stability, but something always felt misaligned. Pursuing art as a career wasn’t encouraged by my family or culture, yet I continued exploring creative work through travel, experimentation, and later, digital art and illustration.
Eventually, I moved to Los Angeles in search of freedom, creatively and personally.
My formal training at the Milan Art Institute helped me refine technique, but more importantly, it helped me unlearn fear. For the first time, I felt permission to create without shrinking myself. To stop trying to be correct and start being real.
In 2022, I won Art Battle Los Angeles, a live painting competition decided by audience vote, a moment that affirmed trust in my instinct and voice. ✘
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ART AS PROCESS, NOT PERFORMANCE
✘ I’ve spent over two decades engaging with different therapeutic approaches, including art therapy, EMDR, hypnosis, and somatic work, alongside ongoing study in neuroscience and psychology.
But my work is not clinical.
It’s lived.
Art became the space where I learned to regulate my nervous system, understand emotional patterns, and slowly rebuild trust in myself. In recent years, I’ve actively confronted long standing fears, including agoraphobia, using creative practice as a central tool for change.
This lived process is the foundation of both my studio work and the workshops I now offer. ✘