During Latinx Heritage Month, we partnered with Converse to get to know Marianna Olague and Niko Rubio, two creatives who make themselves known through their art. Marianna, a native of El Paso, TX, shows love for her community through her realistic, colorful paintings. Keep reading to learn more about Marianna's work, her support for climate justice group Sunrise El Paso, and the mural she was commissioned to create at Space 24 Twenty in Austin, TX. Niko, a singer and songwriter, recently released her EP "Wish You Were Here," a dreamy, upbeat ode to her West Coast roots. We speak to her below about her songwriting process, who she looks up to and her fans' emotional response to her music.

MARIANNA OLAGUE - ARTIST

Your usual work is clearly inspired by your friends and family. Can you talk a bit about how your community provides creative inspiration, and what it means to you to elevate that through your work?

"My community inspires me through its honesty and its display of cultural pride. Our city of El Paso is not known for being beautiful, but for being a dusty desert situated near the infamous US-Mexico border, and still we embrace it. We lay claim to the desert and embrace our duality as both citizens of the U.S and as children of Mexican migrants. We celebrate our Mexican holidays and our American holidays out in the open, but that pride is found in more subtle ways as well, like in the way we speak or the way we dress. It’s the individuals in my life that I want to celebrate as incredible amalgamations of these two countries. I like sharing their stories and unique characteristics in whatever way I can."


Can you talk a bit about where you find inspiration in El Paso and how the area has influenced your work?

"I find inspiration most in the neighborhoods I grew up in. I was brought up in low-income housing and I remember having a bleak outlook on life when I was younger. Today, my life has improved in many ways, but I always return to those old places for inspiration. I like being reminded of where I’ve come from, and of the things I took for granted while I was growing up. It all seems incredibly beautiful to me now and I’m forever inspired by the crumbling rock walls, the dirt parks, the spiky cacti, and the wrought iron bars. I want to share these discoveries through my work and show my appreciation for both the people and the places that made me."


This project is more graphic than your usual portraiture – can you share a bit about how the creative process may have been different?

"Usually when I make a painting, it’s an extremely intimate process. Not just photographing a sitter, but also the painting process itself. As I paint, I become familiar with every eyelash and wrinkle on a person’s face and if I’m honest, it’s a painstaking process. For this project, I wanted to be far less intimate and therefore more simplistic in both line and color. Murals, for instance, are these massive paintings meant for public spaces rather than intimate ones. I was excited to go graphic because it was the type of art I first fell in love with. It also meant I wasn’t weighed down by the heaviness of realism. It was incredibly freeing to create something solely from my mind rather than relying on a reference image. I drew directly from the neighborhoods in my life and utilized some reoccurring motifs that you find in my regular paintings."


You’ve mentioned Gaspar Enriquez as another artist who inspires you – you both are gifted at documenting your communities and giving voice and exposure to the people in your lives. Are there any other creators you’re excited about right now?

"Absolutely. Right now I’m excited about the painter and illustrator Emilia Cruz. She probably doesn’t know I exist, but I’ve been following her work for years. She, like me, is committed to details and paints her friends and family, but unlike me her work incorporates Mexican surrealism and spiritual themes that I’m too shy to paint myself! I’m also a fan of the artist Alina Perez, another queer Latinx artist on the rise. Other artists whose work I can’t stop looking at include Salman Toor, Doron Langberg, and Danny Ferrell. All show love for their communities through gorgeous color field paintings."


In addition to giving voice and exposure to your subjects, you have also pointed us to Sunrise El Paso, which we’re so excited about! Can you tell us a bit about how their mission speaks to you, and what climate justice at the border looks like?

"Climate justice in El Paso begins with utilizing our excessive sunshine for renewable energy. When I make a work of art, I’m always thinking about the environment my figures inhabitant and in particular, the ever-present sun above them. That oppressive heat is both a literal and figurative force in my work. It reminds me that our climate is changing and that our circumstances are getting more and more extreme. Yet, the electric company in our city insists that we continue to use fracking as our main source of energy. Sunrise El Paso has taken to the streets and lobbied against changes that would result in more fracking and more pollution in our community. I knew this was a cause I wanted to support as it was something I had often thought about in the studio. Youth and Latinx led, Sunrise El Paso is actively creating change in the borderland. They are a beacon of hope towards creating a renewable future and I’m proud to have them in my hometown."


Urban Outfitters has made a $5,000 donation on behalf of Marianna Olague to Sunrise El Paso.

NIKO RUBIO - MUSICIAN

What was it like for you growing up in California – how does that inform your songwriting?

"It’s beautiful to grow up in California. Living in Los Angeles specifically, you’re so close to the city and the ocean. The ocean is the main source of inspiration for me. I’m a Pisces so I’ve always felt the most comfortable near water. I write my best when thinking and feeling like water; easy flowing, strong, and thoughtful."


We saw you spent a lot of time at the beach while writing your EP "Wish You Were Here." Can you tell us more about how the beach (and LA in general) inspires you as an artist?

"The beaches in Los Angeles are my favorite. Redondo, Torrance, Manhattan... there’s truly nowhere better. Growing up in the South Bay my friends and I would ask one of our parents to drive us to the beach every day in the summer and we’d lay there for 12 hours a day. We would do this starting in like... elementary school. We were so lucky to be so close to the ocean. That’s why I feel I’m a mermaid. I’m just happy in the water. It allows you to escape and feel as if you’re a part of a whimsical world which inspires me to write and be creative."


Your EP “Wish You Were Here” dropped in August – can you share if you’ve had any meaningful fan reactions to your music?

"I’m so lucky to have gotten so many meaningful reactions from fans. It’s been less than a month since the EP came out and I get the sweetest DMs from fans being like, “I scream 'Saving Me' at the top of my lungs every day! Thank you for this.” I cannot even believe it’s real. It makes me so happy that the music is allowing people to free themselves so much that they wanna scream it as loud as they can. That’s the best."


Tell us a little bit about how you made a song like “Amor” and why it was important for you to include a song in Spanish.

"I wrote “Amor” because I told myself I needed to make it a priority to write a song in Spanish. Exercising the muscle is important. I rarely get to speak Spanish unless I’m with my family or out and meet someone who speaks it. Most of my family still lives in Mexico or speak only Spanish. “Amor” is about telling someone you love them and thanking them for loving you unconditionally. It’s special because it makes me think of my love for my culture and everything my grandparents and parents sacrificed to get me here."


Who is someone that shaped you as an artist? Who are some of your heroes?

"Someone that shaped me as an artist is probably Erykah Badu because she prioritizes writing and creating a narrative/story for each of her albums. Some of my heroes are Tyler the Creator, Shakira, Lana Del Rey, and Incubus. They all created the soundtrack to my childhood. I don’t know if I’d do music without them. Tyler is also from the Hawthorne area so I would see his stickers at the Galleria Mall as a kid and looked him up and realized he was epic and never stopped listening to him. I was 11. LOL. You can imagine how my grandma would have felt if she knew I was listening to "Yonkers." "