“At the last stroke, last night, I think it was nine o’clock, we were putting the glaze on the canvas….it was hectic but it was like a good hectic,” said Leticia Acevedo, a Trenton Urban artist said as she prepped for her gala in Hopewell on Thursday night.  

The Trenton artist put together a gala at Hopewell Valley Vineyards called “Wine & Jazz Artwork” in less than a month after getting the idea from her Facebook memories. She called the vineyard and asked if they would host a show for her and they accepted, launching Acevedo on a hectic journey in September where she created seven new artworks. 

Her paintings leave no canvas with a white spot. Each image shows a different cultural identity. “(Think) colorful pieces of women, with their big hair, and the big hoop earrings, and the head wraps… I think I’m in love with color…I don’t think I would want anything to be just whitewashed. So I just want to throw color on everything,” said Acevedo.

The Trenton artist has been known to create extravagant colorful works of art that are meant to empower women of all nationalities.  She considers herself an urban artist that can create artwork on any surface. Her pieces are designed to showcase strong women of color. 

“I put them on canvas…on wine glasses…on tables, I burn, wood…so it just depends on which medium I’m working with…  it’s a ‘culturalistic’ style that I have,” Acevedo said.

She began her career as an artist very young. After getting into trouble one too many times at home by painting on the walls as a young girl, Acevedo’s parents enrolled her in Artworks and she has loved working in central New Jersey ever since. 

“Even though I was born and raised in Trenton, you would think I was born in Puerto Rico, just the way that we were raised at home,” Acevedo said. 

Her parents taught her all of their cultural norms, going so far as to not allow her to speak English in the household. This would inspire Acevedo to create her work surrounding herself in learning about different cultures and create that canvas. 

“There [are] a lot of the things that inspire me and motivate me, whether it’s my culture or somebody else’s culture,” Acevedo added. “I want to include that in my pieces because I think that there’s so much behind people’s backgrounds and art is just another form of telling that story.”