Begoña Toledo aka Boxhead
Born in Spain, Begoña Toledo (a.k.a Boxhead) is an internationally recognised artist and fashion designer. Her work is influenced by urbanism, architecture and our emotional responses to society’s rules.
She began her career in street art while living in Amsterdam, drawn to its aesthetics and its potential for social change.
All of Toledo’s work revolves around her character, Boxhead.
For the artist, Boxhead represents all of us. The box holds an inner space — our fears, our dreams and our ideals.
It gives the character both anonymity and a quietly approachable vulnerability. Through Boxhead, Toledo explores identity, selfhood and the distance between what we feel and what we show.
Her practice spans multiple mediums, including street art, painting, digital work, animation (2D and 3D), and sculpture.
Some of her most recognised murals include the four-storey Rumney Guggenheim building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; the Red Market mural for Palladium Boots; Pretty Lights’ concert backdrop for New Orleans Jazz Fest; and a large-scale mural in Wynwood for Art Basel Miami.
Her work has been exhibited internationally in both solo and group shows, including Moniker Projects (London), GoGallery (Amsterdam), Art Bastion (Miami), and the grand opening of the Rumney Guggenheim Gallery (Brooklyn, NYC), alongside artists such as Olek, Swoon, Olivia Steel and Lady Aiko.
Boxhead has been featured in Hi-Fructose and numerous street art publications, as well as books including Women Street Artists, The Wynwood Colouring Book and New Street Art.
Get in touch
info@boxheadbox.com
”Something about her work pertains to categories, being literally ‘put in a box,’ while also defying these categories by denying her audience access to any tangible emotion the subject may be feeling as she walks trough mist, through rain or tears. We don’t know what she’s thinking as she forms part of a manufacturing line, looks down at the landscape around her. We don’t understand – and this feeling is internalised. Do we understand ourselves?
The boxes give these pieces both a private and public life. They are shy and responsive at the same time, protective yet open. We don’t know whether the box is imposed upon Boxhead, or if she is wearing it by choice. We don’t know whether it is a part of her or if she is using it to conceal her true identity. And Boxhead doesn’t privilege us with her subject’s thoughts. It’s a Schrödinger’s cat type situation, in which the subject is both devoid of feelings and overwhelmed, faceless and beautiful, or ugly.
I find it interesting that the subjects are always gendered female, with their typical pocketed dresses and rounded thighs. This speaks to me of a kind of self-awareness, while also conversely pertaining to childhood and uncertainty. According to the artist, Boxhead has “a rebel attitude in the sense of identity.”
Boxhead’s paintings question our notions of identity and self-hood. They speak of gender politics, urban existentialism and consumer culture. They speak, and while I don’t know what they’re saying, exactly, I know I want to listen.”