Born and raised in the countryside of Colombia, Catalina Estrada has been living and working as an illustrator in Barcelona, Spain since 1999. Her exuberant and colorful artwork combines the flavor of traditional folk art and contemporary Asian influences with a contemporary pop culture edge. The ever-present botanical and floral shapes from earth, sea and sky are reminiscent of the decorative Arts & Crafts movement, whether seen in her wonderland settings or intricate repeat patterns and icons. Catalina's enchanting characters and fantasy lands have cross-generational appeal and are inspired by her travels, literature, music, fairytales, family and childhood experiences playing in nature in the mountains of Columbia.

Trained in graphic design at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Columbia, Catalina worked as a graphic designer for a little more than a year before taking a break from the demands of a design firm and moving to Paris to study French. France did nothing to discourage her creativity and she began to draw and paint for the pure joy of it. She then moved to Barcelona with the intention of staying only a few months to complete an illustration course. However she soon found Escola Llotja, a wonderful public art school for fine arts, and managed to join the third year of a five-year program specializing in lithography (printmaking). Before she knew it, Barcelona had become her home.

Described by Computer Arts Magazine as "vibrant, sweet and enchanting", Catalina's work has been utilized in advertising, merchandise, apparel, textiles, sporting goods, magazines, book publishing, posters, packaging, environmental graphics, social expression (greeting cards and wrapping paper, etc.), and point of purchase. She has worked with a truly international list of clients showing the breadth of her work's appeal and the reach of her exposure in this rapidly shrinking world. Past and current clients hail from USA, Australia, Brazil, Spain, United Arab Emirates, France, Netherlands, England, France, Germany, Columbia, Belgium and Japan.

Primarily working with the computer, Catalina uses a Mac, a Wacom tablet and her i-pod to assist in the creation of her artwork. She sketches and paints with pencils, watercolor and acrylics and is inspired by different types of papers. When asked how she developed her style, Catalina replied "I've always loved color, I've always loved emotional images, so I guess I put lots of emotion and color into every image I create. I also love to travel, and I've been lucky enough to visit many countries which has greatly influenced my work. I take a little bit from each place and then put it all together in my art, design and illustration. Some years ago I started doing some volunteer work for foundations in Colombia helping children with AIDS (SI FUTURO) and poor children in Colombia's countryside (FASOR). The illustrations I created for them were sort of the beginning of this style. I tried to fill the illustrations with lots of color, love, hope and light so they would really get people's attention and drive contributions to the foundations. The illustrations worked well so I was very happy with the results. Those were very inspirational projects, and that point in time marked the beginning of my illustration career."

With illustration that is a hybrid of technical precision and visionary imagination, she has worked with an impressive group of advertising and corporate clients including Salomon, Nike, Unicef, Coca Cola, Motorola, Sony Music, Marks & Spencer (UK), Head & Shoulders, MTVN (Netherlands), Godiva, Rexona, San Miguel Beer and Honda. Her editorial, publishing and social expression clients include Chronicle Books, The New Yorker, Der Spiegel (Germany), Oxford University Press, Cosmopolitan, Hodder Headline, Nineteen Seventy Three, XLR8R, Avant Garde Magazine (Netherlands), Frankie Magazine (Australia), Yen Magazine (Australia), DGV Publishers (Germany) and Casa Viva (Spain).

Catalina has also worked in collaboration with a small but impressive group of fashion designers to design textile prints, embroidered elements and graphics, including Paul Smith, Custo Barcelona, Anunciacao and MOLO Kids. Her collaborations with Anunciacao has been covered in Elle, Claudia, FFW Magazine, Criativa, and Epoca, as well as in the book 'Patterns & Applications in Fashion' from Evergreen.

In addition to commissioned illustrations, Catalina and her work have been featured in such edited publications as Communication Arts, DPI (Taiwan), Computer Arts (UK), Die Gestalten Verlag (Germany), Arte Y Diseno (Spain), Swindle, Paper, MONOclab (Spain), Inshu Washi (Japan), Rojo (Spain) and Graphic Magazine (UK). Her work has also been covered by a number of art and design websites and blogs including illustrationmundo, subaquatica, fusedmagazine, lostateminor, webesteem and lifefever. The influential netdiver named Catalina 'Best of the Year' in 2005. Her work has also been commissioned for a catalog cover for MOLAA, The Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California and she was selected from among hundreds of artists for the Rojo-Out project sponsored by J&B. For Rojo-Out her work was showcased on giant billboards in the streets of Barcelona, Spain for the International Outdoor Urban Art Exhibition.

Her work has been published in a number of books on various topics relating to art and design, including Illusive - Contemporary Design and Its Context, DGV (Germany); Illustration Now Two, Taschen (USA); Digital Illustration, published in English and Spanish by Mao Mao Publications (Spain) and distributed by Rockport (USA & Canada); and Pattern Design: Applications and Variations, published in English and Spanish by Mao Mao Publications (Spain) and distributed by Rockport (USA & Canada).

Catalina has exhibited extensively in group shows, including the influential Johnathan LeVine Gallery in New York and the "Two Steps Back" exhibition which traveled to Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Rome, Barcelona, Zurich, and Tokyo. She has had solo shows at Roq la Rue Gallery in Seattle, Iguapop Gallery in Barcelona, Spain, la Sala de Exposiciones Comfenalco in Medellin, Colombia and at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles. Her work has also been exhibited in events such as the InkThis exhibition "Dreams & Nightmares" that opened in Leicester, England and traveled to Hong Kong.