Mila De Felix is a Puerto Rican visual artist currently based in New York, working across metalwork, installation, and sculpture. Her practice combines the personal with an exploration of the textures, shapes, and forms in nature. For the artist, embodied performance and meticulous craftsmanship bridge lived experiences and environments, serving as a means of engaging with emerging methods of creation.
Untitled, 2024. Hand-forged 925 silver sheets and tourmaline bezel.
Milla: I started making jewelry during the pandemic when I was looking for ways to entertain myself. I began by making beaded necklaces and waist beads using old watch pieces, found objects, and repurposed trinkets from discarded stock at local stores. After some time selling beaded and wired jewelry, I became increasingly fascinated with metalwork and its capacity for creating objects from scratch. In the spring of 2023, I took my first metalsmithing class, where I learned the fundamentals of hand-forging metal.
Since then, I’ve continued exploring metalworking and have begun experimenting with welding larger metals like stainless steel. Recently, I’ve also been drawn to installation, video, and performance art—mediums that have encouraged me to more freely address themes of femininity and modern culture.
B: You work with a wide range of organic and inorganic materials. What draws you to wood, metal, and even olive oil? Do you have a favorite material to work with?
M: I think I sort of have this obsession with natural materials: their textures, their complex configurations, their soft movements. As a child, I would walk down the beach and try to collect as many corals, sea shells, and tree branches as I could possibly carry to then arrange them into fun patterns in the sand. This instinct for collecting and transforming natural objects has remained a very central pursuit in my artistic practice.
Selecting which materials I choose to incorporate in a project is a very intuitive process. In my recent Extra Virgin installation, I incorporated extra virgin olive oil as a way to create a contrast between the purity that is expected of a woman and the purity that is desired in said product. This piece not only critiques the romanticization of the “virgin woman,” but also satirically portrays a kind of ritual where a woman is being purified or even re-virginized by the oil.
Even though I love playing around with various mediums, metal just speaks to my aesthetic sensibilities in a way that no other material does. It’s such a malleable and playful material; it’s definitely a favorite.
B: Do you have any specific inspirations for your work? This could include artists, concepts, places, or things.
M: I fluctuate a lot with who or what inspires me from time to time. Most of my work freely entangles the natural world with themes revolving around the female body and its connection to cycles, transformation, and resilience, exploring the interplay between vulnerability and strength. Mimicking textures and patterns is also a great interest of mine. For my “Sirena” pendant, for example, not only did I want to recreate fish scales, but I used cuttlefish bone itself to directly transfer this texture onto the silver.
Looking at other artists’ work and learning about their process of creation is also a source of creative stimulation. Recently, I’ve been looking at artists like Carolee Schneemann, Julie Tolentino, and Santiago Sierra for performance art, and Phil Ross, Mia Gosset, and Karl Fritsch for more sculptural work. For jewelry, I enjoy following labels and brands like Hugo Kreit, Simuero, and Humble Forge Jewelry.
M: Honestly, my work is ALL about experimentation and playfulness. Expanding my knowledge and innovating my practice with new and weird techniques for crafting is the main reason for why I do what I do. For one of my projects recently, instead of submitting the “final” piece, I simply put out all my silicone and wax molds, my organic casting materials like garbanzos and sand, and small pieces of textured copper plates I made by transferring fabric patterns onto the sheets.
With an art medium such as jewelry, the process of creation is one of those things that goes unnoticed, compared to— for example— performance art, where the art is the process itself. In other words, jewelry is almost never associated with process, rather with the existence of the object itself. Through my experimentation, and the documentation of it—which I mostly share on my Instagram page—I try to encourage the viewer to not only see the piece that I created, but to also experience the beautiful and complex process of crafting it by hand.
Morriña, 2024. Welded steel and Capiz sea shells.
¡Disco! , 2024. Hand forged nickel silver sheets.
¿Estás cómodo?, 2024. Plywood, recycled curtains and packing peanuts.
Follow Mila & her work on Instagram @ miladefelix
Interview by Basta Magzine