Silvia Prada is a Spanish-born, NYC-based artist known for her bold graphic style and exploration of gender, identity, and queer culture. Her work spans illustration, photography, and zine-making, with a distinct aesthetic rooted in pop iconography and 1980s/90s subcultures. Celebrated for capturing the spirit of LGBTQ+ communities, Prada’s voice and vision are especially resonant during Pride Month.

ON HER WORK

Francisco Costa [FC]: Talk to me about your work. 

Silvia Prada [SP]: "I think everything around my work is homoerotic. You know, its all abut gay culture and I'm fascinated by masculine beauty and all those standards you know, my work with Tom of Finland or my work with Bob Mizer and all of that legendary gay homoerotic history. So I guess, everything around my work is about gay culture. "

ON HER UPBRINGING

FC: Where did that fascination stem from?

SP: "I grew up in a hair salon for men. Thats why also the thing abut my sensitivity with like skin and smells, like scents. My dad was um hairstylist. He had a coiffure salon, very chic. I grew up around magazines and books about men. So thats why Im fascinated by all that universe."

ON AROMATHERAPY

FC: Well now I know where your love of fragrance and our Aroma comes from. 

SP: "Thats why maybe I go to bed I need to smell everything because my dad had thousands of things. At the end of the day, I need to smell something and its kind of like before going to bed, I go to my box and different boxes of my soaps and I need to smell some of them. I have a ton of soaps. I collect soaps and vintage like scents, even vintage samples of like, you know, when they used to come back int he days in the magazines with little booklets and you have the scents there, I collect all of those."

SP: "Its about the body. So its a relaxing time of my day, but it also keeps me inspired because I feel like some scents changes so much along time; but the way they smell, it takes me somewhere. And also, books, its the same. If you smell your perfume, and then you also go to a book. Its the same sensation. Its takes you somewhere. So I feel like books and fragrance is a great marriage. It's like kind of like for me very um, therapeutic. We love the skin. We love the touch.

ON PRIDE

SP: But yea most of like what I do is uh for the gays.