about the artist
meet Denise
Born in East Los Angeles and raised in Riverside, California, Denise Silva is an indigenous femme, a mother of 6 beautiful seeds and a total Pisces sun + Cancer moon who loves to explore plant medicine + mysticism and weaving those experiences into her world of art. In her earlier years, she attended Riverside Community College and went on to graduate from California State University, Los Angeles in the late 90’s where she studied art + illustration.
Motherhood brought Denise back to the Inland Empire to put down roots and raise a family while homeschooling and starting a home business. It was during those beautifully chaotic years that she began to slowly immerse herself in community art spaces in downtown Riverside. As a multidimensional creative, Denise was also nurturing an online space for women + mothers on Pearmama, which started off as a humble mom blog in 2006.
Denise shares spiritual medicine in the form of art, creating to uplift the divine feminine to shift the culture at large and collectively heal the Earth and one another. At the center of Denise’s art practice is her spirituality:
Elevating the ancestors, telling the story of Mother Earth, big rematriation energy
a humble bow toward the plants
the water
the animals
the land
her art
Drawing and creating stories was a refuge as a latch-key child in the 80’s. Denise created little fantasy worlds for herself when the one she was living in couldn’t be understood. Denise is still creating those fantasy worlds for herself, vast and expansive, often exploring the stages of wombmanhood: childhood, inner child, maiden, mother, crone.
A multimedia artist best known for her conceptual work with collage, paint, paper, ink and installation, Denise began exploring digital art in 2018 and it has expanded her work in many life-changing ways. Her art is woman-centered and rich with sacred Mesoamerican symbols, Divine Feminine mysticism, bold figurative shapes and a dream-like color story with organic shapes that often overlap themselves and create unique dimensions within dimensions.
Denise has worked from her home studio since day one, a survival tactic that most creatives who are also parents can understand. A delicate balance but a very necessary one: it allowed her to be at home with her children and it normalized the practice of seeing mama do what she loves to do.
Denise describes art as healing medicine for the soul, divine messages to find the way back home to ourselves.
the blog
Pearmama evolved from a mother’s journal about life with 6 children to a lifestyle blog with DIY projects, sponsored posts and stories about family and motherhood to its current iteration — sharing her art + writing from the ancient heartspace on Corn Sister.
Email Denise at pearmama@gmail.com
Follow me on Instagram