“There is nothing more rewarding than helping people”. This is how painter and interior architect Patricia Ramos Hernández (Ibiza, 1973) describes the motivation behind a solidarity project she launched a few months ago with the aim of supporting people affected by natural disasters or humanitarian crises. The initiative, titled Art with Heart, involves creating commissioned paintings and donating 100% of the proceeds to her work as a volunteer with the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK).
Through this project, Ramos has managed to bring together two major passions she has nurtured for decades. Her commitment to solidarity, she explains, was instilled by her maternal grandfather, Antonio Hernández, from Can Patricio, who enrolled her as a child in the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), an independent international organisation dedicated to the protection of nature and the environment. Her love of art, meanwhile, was likely sparked at an early age by Belgian artist Gilbert Herreyns, whom she had the opportunity to watch at work during her summers in Formentera. Those summers were spent with her best friend, Diana Garau, daughter of Neus Riera Balanzat, Herreyns’ partner.
Decoration, her third great passion, led her to study interior architecture in Madrid, the city where she lived for decades before settling in Stockholm eleven years ago. For many years, she combined her work as an interior architect with painting, which she initially regarded “as a hobby”. After moving to the Swedish capital, she chose to dedicate more of her free time to supporting NGOs. This work “captivated” her to such an extent that she eventually left her profession to focus entirely on volunteering.
She began by carrying out administrative work for Plan International, a global NGO that promotes children’s rights and gender equality. Later, when the war in Ukraine broke out, she spent more than three months working with a Swedish non-governmental organisation, assisting Ukrainian refugees and their children at the Swedish Migration Agency.
For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.