Throughout her creative life, Adriana Siso has defied the conventional boundaries that distinguish fine art, design, architecture and entrepreneurship. Instead, she has set upon a course of exploration that traverses many landscapes, including fashion design, highly refined minimalist painting, sculpture and, most recently, architecture and environment. Her creative inclinations seem not to recognize categories. Categories are something that is determined when looking back; Siso is interested in the exploration of what has yet to be categorized. She is an artist and a designer, a contemporary furniture dealer, but, most prominently, she is an innovator.
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Siso left home in 1979 to study studio art with Pilly Taboada in Valencia, Venezuela. She also co-owned and operated Entonces, a fashion design store in Valencia, Venezuela. Entonces offered Brazilian and Italian beachwear as well as in-store designed and produced lines. Later, back in Caracas, she entered the locally well known CEGRA (Centro de Ensenanza Grafica) program to study graphic arts, art theory, and drawing with highly regarded artist Alirio Palacios, and visual communication with the renowned Latin American critic, curator and cultural commentator Maria Elena Ramos. In the early 1980’s, she moved to the United States where she received a BFA degree in sculpture from Florida International University.
Influenced by a friend and Art History professor at FIU, who had lived with his family in the Southwest to explore and document ancient cultures and artifacts, Adriana continued her journey, and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1989. The Southwest opened to her a fertile cycle of new ideas. Welcomed by the timelessness and beauty of the Southwestern landscape and culture, she continued her studies in art with Lynda Benglis at the Santa Fe Art Institute. In the mid-nineties she became involved in an innovative collaboration with a local Santa Fe artist to setup artists’ studios and exhibition spaces in an old mid-town warehouse building, which became The West Manhattan Artspace, an artist collective where exhibitions and events were shared for a few years. She also co-owned and operated Black Mesa Ceramics, a ceramic studio in the outskirts of Santa Fe as part of another artist collaborative project space, and worked off and on in faux painting in residential and commercial projects in USA and Venezuela, including theatrical production at the Santa Fe Opera. She also continued to show her artwork in Caracas and the US.
The Molecule Design Space
Siso’s most impressive accomplishment to date, the design and construction of her Molecule Design Store project, is a continuation of her interest in the relationship between spatial construction and social purpose. She is interested in the connection between what people are doing and the structures in which they work. Molecule became her most personal and most adventurous endeavor. Formed by 11 100 % recycled cargo containers, the structure is unique in Santa Fe. An evident industrial quality maintains an understated freshness. Steel and frosted polycarbonate set up the tone for the airy space, filled with light, which changes according to need.
The building was sold in 2022. The store annually featured the work of local Santa Fe designers, fabricators, and artists, as well as national and international design firms through multiple events and alliances. The Molecule Design Store was launched in September 2010 at 1226 Flagman Way in the lively Baca Railyard District. Adriana Siso founded her design store in 2002 in a previous location in Santa Fe, NM. The first design partners Molecule worked with were Vitra Design Museum, Moooi, Cherner Chair, and other well-known brands. Today it partners with other world-class manufacturers like Vondom, Loll Designs and Moroso.
Currently Molecule is available through the online store and by appointment. Sustainability is an important area of interest and ongoing exploration for Molecule, which offers product lines with a focus on conservation and ecological stewardship. A recent alliance with the Vertical Aeroponic Growing System – Tower Garden, promises to offer a lot of inspiration in the growing field of aeroponics as the future of agriculture, industrial design at its best.