Valeria Araya

“All too often, stock images are simplistic and standardized, which can create problems for underrepresented groups, such as Latino, women, and transgender communities. I want to make meaningful images to change that and generate more visibility for people of all colors, body types, and gender identities.”

Meet Valeria

Valeria Araya (she/her) is a Latin American visual artist and illustrator born and raised in Santiago, Chile. A graduate in visual arts, she expresses her love of drawing and illustration through print making. Her style is characterized by a mixture of digital and analog techniques, strong textures, and hyper-saturated colors.

Valeria’s work focuses on women and women’s political movements across her country and continent. She is committed to supporting cisgender and transgender women, as well as fighting for their digital rights through the MECHA collective. Valeria is also active in the NGO Amaranta. Inspired by the Circles of Activism creative brief, her Adobe Stock Artist Development Fund project aims to push beyond the limitations of traditional stock image libraries—and provide a larger platform for her work to be seen. “All too often, stock images are simplistic and standardized, which can create problems for underrepresented groups, such as Latinx, women, and transgender communities,” she says. “I want to make meaningful images to change that and generate more visibility for people of all colors, body types, and gender identities.”