María Berrío creates fantastical worlds from Japanese-paper collages in New York

In the work of New York-based Colombian artist María Berrío, nothing is quite as it seems. Otherworldly tales are part myth, part memory, delicately rendered in watercolour on Japanese paper. Her paintings are unexpectedly rife with familiar and contemporary detailing, in a meeting of worlds real and imagined. It is a style that is reflective of Berrío herself.

Growing up in Bogotá, she spent much of her time on a family farm, triggering the love of nature and storytelling she was to build on later. Beginning first by drawing large-scale works in charcoal – ‘it was a way of connecting me to the world,’ she says – Berrío became fascinated with Japanese paper, using it to create collages. In the physical and symbolic act of layering, collage makes a natural medium from which to explore the intersection of past and present.

‘I grew up with legends and myths in Colombia, and this fascination with the magical realism of my culture started in childhood,’ says the artist. ‘This fantastical way of seeing the world is always with me.’

At 18, Berrío moved to New York to study at Parsons School of Design, where she discovered a more contemporary mythical heritage in the famous monuments of the city. The aura of New York’s landmarks loom larger than their reality, a magical symbolism that Berrío draws on in her modern retellings.

Speaking to Berrío during her recent debut solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth (which ran until 19 October 2025), in New York, we glimpse details of these in an eclectic jumble of references from worlds we’ve heard about or seen.

Works are vast and lifesized in scale. They are created from handmade paper, which is torn, cut into fragments and layered, with the resulting mixture of painting and collage reflecting the disparate nature of oral storytelling itself. A rich narrative runs throughout. Among the works on view at the show, entitled ‘Soliloquy of the Wounded Earth’, is a series of three full-length vertical portraits, in which Berrío reinterprets the myth of the Moirai (or Greek Fates), who here become Colombian dancers swirling a vibrant blue ribbon, synonymous with the fragile thread of life. In planning the paintings, Berrío worked with a dancer, creating an image that sparked the idea for a parallel world, where the artist imagines that the threads of the three fates were stolen by humanity.

In other works on show, the humans have ceded control of the Moirai’s threads, and disaster reigns. The threads are no longer recognisable, now woven into everyday motifs, such as colourful banners and flags, and used as symbols of war, as sacred as gods to the crowds in the pictures. Berrío encourages us to wonder whether they are all that will be left when people have burned earth to the ground?

‘What would happen if humanity could control its own destiny?’ she asks. ‘When you walk into the show, you see the myth that is part of the show, and then the parallel world that has been created. Humans have made their own gods, which you can see flying above the crowds. In the struggle to create their own destiny, it ends up being chaos and warfare. Throughout, there is a mix of contemporary life with fantasy and storytelling.’

The world-building continues in other works where we follow individuals – dancers, adolescents, horseriders – as they make their way through colourful worlds that are both fantastical and surprisingly familiar. ‘All these threads of life are connected, so it’s very powerful, but also quite dark at the same time,’ says Berrío. ‘In my work, there is always this sense of mystery, of beauty, but also of darkness.’

Berrío has previously focused on the end of rituals. ‘Now I am going back and seeing how these myths were created, and how these ideas could help or inspire people.’ She acknowledges that the internet and social media have created a different approach to telling stories. ‘We have lost a little bit of those oral traditions now that there are new ways of thinking and reading. But I feel it’s important to keep our stories, stories from our ancestors and the ways in which they developed. That’s what I’d like to bring back.’

This article appears in the November 2025 Art Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands from, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + from 9 October. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today