When Elisa Sabbö arrived in Park City, she never imagined it would become home. What began as a routine summer visit with family turned into a pandemic-era pause as travel was disrupted, and later a creative rebirth in which she would find community and an opportunity to grow as an artist.
Now, five years later, the Chilean painter and sculptor is a returning artist at the Latino Arts Festival, showcasing vibrant works that merge the wild beauty of the desert with the quiet strength and resilience of womanhood.
Sabbö grew up in Quintero, Chile, the country’s very first port town. A quick online search reveals the beauty of the peninsular town surrounded by seaside cliffs and ocean. But what has inspired Sabbö in many of her works is the American West and desert culture.
“When I moved here and started going to places like Moab and Zion, I experienced the desert for the first time and it made such an impression on me,” Sabbö said. “I wanted to capture that feeling in my art — the innocence of discovering a new landscape, that feeling of, ‘Wow, this is incredible.’”
She said she remembers camping and hearing absolutely nothing at night for the first time, complete silence.
“I’d never heard that kind of silence before,” she said. “I want my art to give people that same feeling, like they’ve never seen that kind of landscape before and they want to go experience it.”
Attracted to the arts from a young age, Sabbö began drawing and painting as early as 4 years old. Sculpting held a special fascination for Sabbö, she recalled. As a child, she often shaped small figures out of dirt or clay — little tomatoes, corn, and other vegetables — and on a larger scale, created faces and mermaids, which she found fascinating, she said.
“My parents had a factory that made these Chilean cookies called palmeras, or palmiers. I’d help out, and often we had to work the butter to soften it. So I’d grab the butter and make sculptures — super weird,” she said with a laugh.
These instances would shape her path that from the age of 5 led toward being an artist: “I learned what the word meant, and I said, ‘That. I want to be that,’” she said.
Despite encouragement from family to pursue more “practical careers,” like design or architecture, Sabbö went on to earn a degree in fine arts and discovered a new appreciation for oil painting.
“I enrolled because I wanted to be a sculptor, honestly. But the program we had only included one year of sculpture, and the rest was painting,” Sabbö said. “Out of nowhere, I started falling in love with painting. I began to enjoy it more and more, and I ended up becoming a painter.”
The move to Park City seemed destined for Sabbö, or maybe just one of those happy accidents. It was in Park City she would have her first artworks displayed in a public place, where her first artworks would be sold, and where she would participate in her first festival.
She continues to work closely with Park City organizations such as the Arts Council and the Kimball Art Center, and she has had her works displayed around town.
“I realized I had more opportunities to grow my art career here than in Chile,” Sabbö said.
Sabbö’s work blends natural landscapes — particularly the desert — with depictions of strong, solitary women.
“I noticed that when people paint the American West, they often show men on horses, alone in vast landscapes,” she said. “I wanted to show women in those spaces too — not to rewrite history, but to show how strong we women are and how much we have to go through, and that at the same time we too can be in the middle of nowhere, in arid places, in deserts or in storms, and that we have the strength to survive and also to admire that beauty.”
Visitors to this year’s festival can expect to see a large assortment of works from Sabbö related to these themes, with prints and original pieces available for purchase. Last year was her first time at the festival, and she said it was an impactful experience.
“I didn’t just feel appreciated as a Latina — I felt seen,” Sabbö said. “It’s a moment of community unity, and I’m so excited to be back.”
Sabbö said being part of the festival is both an honor and a responsibility — one that feels meaningful in a community where Latino workers are often visible but not fully seen.
“Many Latinos work in restaurants, in bars — but it’s like, ‘my server, or my bartender, or the person who cleans my house.’ But this creates an opportunity to say, ‘Hey, we’re not just the people who serve you — we’re a beautiful community, with an incredible culture that creates, that dreams.’ It creates equality and it creates appreciation. It’s vital in Park City and vital in these times as well.”
A full schedule of this year’s Latino Arts Festival can be found at pcscarts.org/latino-arts-festival.
For more on Sabbö, follow her Instagram @sabbotaje.