BIO
Santa Mercita is the artist name gifted to Thania Guerra by her ancestors. Born in Siguatepeque, Honduras, and now based in Seattle, Washington, she is a self-taught graphic designer, illustrator, and multidisciplinary artist whose work centers storytelling as a form of self-actualization and collective liberation.
Her practice is rooted in ancestral knowledge and cultural memory, drawing inspiration from the richness of her Central American heritage. With family origins in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, Santa Mercita weaves the sacred into her work. Symbols like coffee, bay leaves, garlic, rice, and the elements appear throughout her pieces, offering protection, abundance, and remembrance. The name "Honduras", meaning "depths", speaks to her intimate relationship with water and the life it sustains. Her color palettes, vibrant and intentional, reflect the bold energy of her roots.
Working primarily with acrylic on canvas and digital illustration, Santa Mercita explores themes of racialization, the sacredness of sexuality, trauma, inner worlds, pop culture, and HERstory. Each piece becomes a portal, a visual language that connects longing, memory, and possibility.
A lifelong artist, she began expressing herself through drawing and doodling as a child. Living with ADHD made traditional school settings difficult, and art became both an outlet and a tool for focus—a way to process information and release energy. She taught herself to paint in high school and later, in 2017, began mastering the digital illustration app Procreate. Her dedication to refining her craft eventually led her to create hyper-realistic portraits, showcase her work in local art shows, and receive commissions for custom illustrations and small business branding.
As her skills evolved, she began supporting minority-owned businesses by designing branding materials that uplift identity and narrative. Today, she works as a communications specialist and graphic designer for a food justice organization serving Latine communities in Burien, Washington. This work allows her to connect deeply with her community, creating visual stories that build access, trust, and empowerment.
Santa Mercita's creative practice is inseparable from her purpose. She is committed to working alongside community-rooted people and organizations, using art as a tool for healing, resistance, and liberation. Her work is both personal and collective, a bridge between the wisdom of her ancestors and the future she dreams of building.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a Honduran American graphic designer, illustrator, and emerging multidisciplinary artist who uses storytelling as a pathway to self-actualization and collective liberation. Through vibrant compositions and intentional narratives, I draw from my ancestry, music, spiritual knowledge, and lived experiences to reimagine love, life, and joy beyond imposed boundaries. My practice is a reclamation of giving voice to those who came before me and reshaping what it means to live in duality.
My work is rooted in the rhythms of my culture and the sacred pulse of intuition. It moves through themes of racialization, the sacredness of sexuality, trauma, inner worlds, pop culture, and HERstory. When I paint with acrylic on canvas or create digital illustrations, each artwork serves as a gateway that expresses our feelings of longing, anger, and hope.
Lately, I've been exploring clay and plan to learn the process of traditional mask-making, which holds deep cultural significance in my Central American heritage. These tactile practices allow me to weave in symbols of protection, prosperity, and remembrance. My process is meditative and spiritual, grounded in research, ancestral knowledge, and intuitive inquiry. Every piece I create is an offering, an intentional meditation on abundance, community, and transformation.
At its core, my work is a call to remember. To unlearn the colonial narratives we've inherited and to see ourselves as whole, sacred, and inherently abundant. I want those who experience my work to confront the conditioning they've been handed and imagine a world where liberation isn't a distant idea, but something intimate and possible. I believe art can guide us home to ourselves.
I grew up in a single-parent, low-income household, and I carry the weight of that history with both tenderness and urgency. I know what it means to navigate a world shaped by scarcity. I believe in creating spaces, especially for young people, where emotional expression and creative freedom are not just encouraged, but necessary. My dream is to cultivate environments where others can process their truths through painting, sculpture, and storytelling, just as I have.
Art is more than expression to me. It is healing. It is resistance. It is abundance. I believe the universe is always speaking, and through my work, I help us remember how to listen.
