Natalia Sly is a London-born, Argentina-raised artist now based in Lisbon. With a background that spans curation, design, and creative direction, her work moves fluidly across disciplines — from running the Buenos Aires gallery SlyZmud to crafting visual identities for hospitality spaces across Europe. Since 2022, she has turned her focus more fully to painting, developing a practice shaped by architecture, color, and light. Whether arranging objects or building spaces, her approach reflects a deep sensitivity to form and atmosphere. In 2025, she opened Salón, a restaurant in Lisbon that extends her artistic world into a warm, lived experience of gathering, food, and visual storytelling.

Hi Natalia! Thanks for being part of this. How are you these days?

Thank you for inviting me. I am at this moment in India! Travelling around Rajasthan with my son Jack for 3 weeks. I am very happy to be around so much inspiration, stimulation that enables me to collect ideas to take back home with and create new bodies of work.

Do you have any morning rituals or small habits that help you start your day?

I always start the day with a 20/30 minute meditation, then I do QiGong for another half an hour, make myself coffee and write my morning pages which helps me start the day with a clearer and calmer mind. These practices really set the mood for my day and it's incredible how it changes my internal state if i don’t do them!

When did painting become something you had to do? Do you remember your earliest memory of making something that felt like yours?

I started a painting course in Lisbon just before covid hit and it was there that they had given me different color exercises, mixing paint and arriving at different color combinations. I remember the sensation of the whole process flowing out of me and just really engaging with what I was doing in a meditative state. I just wanted to continue experimenting and playing with colour using different materials. That was the spark that ignited my desire to set up my own studio and keep working on all the infinite ways of applying color over color.

Your use of color and space feels so intentional: calm, balanced and full of presence. Do you see painting more as a form of expression or as a practice of seeing?

I was brought up in very colorful environments. My mother created vibrant and colorful interiors throughout my life. I think painting is just one form of expression through which I’ve found a way to play with color in the moment and apply those possible color combinations to paper. I’ve found it incredibly useful to see how these colors resonate with one another and create a field of vibration. However, I’m eager to express this in a more atmospheric way, working with space, light, and sound to create a more immersive experience alongside the paintings. I could say that the paintings are what help all the rest to follow.

I get the sense that for you, painting isn’t just about what’s on the canvas but also about arrangement, space, mood… What kind of environments make you feel most alive creatively?

Yes, very much! It’s a bit like what I was saying before, I am composing in space all the time. I like to imagine how each element, whether it’s a painting or any other object, sits and resonates with what is next to it. I think the environments that make me feel most creatively alive are those filled with pouring natural light. I get excited by how light reflects within a space and how that inspires me to visualize different possibilities there. Nature and strong landscapes with breathtaking views make me feel more alive than ever and inspire me immensely.

How do you know when something’s finished? Or do you not really believe in “finished”?

I believe in harmony, and when I feel that what I have in front of me has reached a certain visual harmony, I tend not to touch it again. I like to think that changes in what surrounds the painting, or in how light affects it at different times of the day, will eventually create the sensation of a finished piece, one that vibrates well with what is around it. I’m inspired by the idea that nothing exists in isolation and that everything exists only in relation to everything else.

You’ve lived in Argentina, the UK and now Portugal. Do you think your sense of home  or movement shows up in your work?

Yes, for sure. I think I carry every place within me, and it shows up all the time in the way I live and express my life through my work. The richness of each culture and the different emotional landscapes create the foundation upon which decisions are made every day, shaping how each day unfolds. We are all a mix of everything we have lived, and that is what makes us completely unique. All of our colors shine through us, shaped by how we have experienced the reflection of light in the places where we were brought up and gone to.

The color combinations in your work are so specific: intuitive but also deeply intentional. Do you ever think of color as language?

Yes, I like to believe that color helps me feel most like myself, and that it is probably the language through which I can best express how I see the world around me, how I channel all the inspiration I receive from the places I go and the things I see, and the different ways of looking at the world. My language is my way of expressing how I perceive the world through color. The different combinations happen intuitively, but first the intention of the lines on paper creates the conditions that allow me to play with infinite color combinations. I like to work within a “safe container” that gives me the freedom to then choose and mix any colors I want.

You’ve worked in design, interiors, curation… do these other fields shift the way you approach your paintings, or do you keep them completely separate?

I feel that everything is part of the same whole. I approach every project in the same way I would approach a painting. Everything has its elements, and what I enjoy most is arranging these elements together, whether on paper, in space, or through the selection of artists and different types of work. More and more, I try to unify what I do because, at the end of the day, it is the way in which you do things that creates a similar resonance between them. It’s a constant practice to stay truthful to my own vision and sincerely attentive to how what I’m working on makes me feel, always in search of harmony. That is what ties everything together.

When you're not painting, where do you feel most like yourself?

When I am surrounded/immersed in beautiful nature. Being outdoors and feeling all of the elements on my body. I feel myself and very much alive. It brings me down to earth and into the present moment.

And lastly… What are you dreaming of these days? What’s one thing you’d love to see happen in 2026?

I’m dreaming of expanding the possibilities of my work with color and light  into a more immersive experience. I have many ideas for installations and different ways of exhibiting my work. At the same time, one of my great ambitions is to work on a film of some sort. I’ve already started, but it’s all very experimental. I’ve always wanted to make a film, maybe this is the year to do it.

Natalia’s List

Favorite museum, bookstore or local spot?

In Lisbon the Gulbenkian, my favorite bookstore is Salted Books! And local spot Churrasqueria da Paz.

The last book you read?

The Sorcerer’s Crossing.

The last thing you saved in your notes app?

Ideas from the architecture of the Amer Palace in Jaipur. Marble dust mixed with plaster gives all the walls a beautiful shine. It is called Makrana Lime.

A recent image from your camera roll that feels very you?

A song that feels like one of your artworks?

Daddy’s gonna tell you no lie. - Red hot org, Laraaji, Kronos Quartet, Sun Ra.

Your favorite account on IG?

@navelichoyal