In Mérida, Marta Cabané-Navarro Lives In a Creative Haven
Marta Cabané-Navarro knew it from the moment she walked into what would become her sleek, mid-century modern Mérida home. Standing in the front room, she could see straight through to the back of the property—that long, unbroken sightline sealed the deal.
“I love the layout,” she says, gesturing down the house’s length. “The fact that you can see all the way to the end—it made me feel at home immediately. I could already picture where every piece from my Miami collection would go.”
That was four years ago. Since then, Cabané-Navarro has turned the renovated Itzimná home into something between a home and a gallery, filled with her own work alongside pieces from around the world. It’s also her studio, where she creates textiles based on photographs she takes of urban walls and architectural details.
Every room tells part of her story. Graffiti-inspired textiles hang near family photographs. Brazilian modernist furniture sits alongside Spanish colonial details. Like her art, the house brings together seemingly unrelated elements and somehow makes them work as a whole.
Marta Cabané-Navarro’s beginnings
Born in Barcelona, Marta Cabané-Navarro’s route to becoming an artist was anything but straight. Her family moved constantly when she was growing up. She studied interior design in Philadelphia and São Paulo, worked for a clothing designer back in Barcelona, then eventually picked up photography. “Since we moved so much, I decided to go with photography, because I can get clients anywhere,” she explains.
Now, in Mérida, all those scattered interests have finally clicked together. She photographs urban walls, graffiti, and architectural details and then turns those images into repeating patterns for fabric. The fabric becomes clothes or goes into interior design projects. One of her favorite series came from the walls of Mérida’s old train station, where art students once painted shadows of waiting passengers. She’s preserving that bit of street art history through her camera.
The house shows off her eye for curation. Architect Henry Ponce renovated the original two-bedroom colonial, and Marta added her own touches—mainly splashes of color inspired by Luis Barragán. “I love the Barragán colors,” she says. “Where I’m standing right now, I can see the pink from that wall. It transforms the whole space—the house was just gray and white before.”
She’s strategic about color: “neutral, neutral, neutral, punch of color, neutral.” Pink, orange, yellow—carefully placed to create what she calls “uplifting” moments. Six months ago, she took a risk and painted a plain hallway in bold colors. “I hesitated,” she admits, but it worked.
Her studio used to be an outdoor space. Now it’s where photographs of walls from Mérida, Brazil, and elsewhere become textile patterns. One client wanted fabric featuring imagery from a church in Uayma for their beach house in Canada. Another commissioned train station graffiti art for a bedroom. “All of a sudden, I had the three things I love most—clothing, photography, and interior design—all together.”
The calm here is a relief after some of her previous homes, especially São Paulo. Despite that city’s incredible art scene and architecture, she felt constantly on edge. She arrived in Mérida during COVID, spending hours alone with her camera in places like the Baca cemetery, which became the subject of a photo essay for her master’s degree.
Even cooking feeds into her creative process. “It’s my moment to just ‘leave me in the kitchen, please,'” she says. “Sometimes while I’m cooking, I’ll get ideas for photos or see connections to projects I’m already working on.”
Plants soften the colonial architecture throughout the house—she tends to them carefully, dusting leaves and adjusting their positions. Family pieces add personal history, like her grandfather’s dresser from Spain. When her mother-in-law suggested refinishing it to remove the weathered patina, Marta refused: “Nothing has to be perfect. Nothing is perfect.”
Embracing imperfection while chasing beauty is a mindset that runs through her home and her art. She photographs urban decay and natural forms, street art and sacred spaces.
“Between nature and walls,” she says, “they’re my two favorite things to photograph.”
Lee Steele is the founding director of Mérida-based Roof Cat Media S de RL de CV and has published Yucatán Magazine and other titles since 2012. He was Hearst Connecticut’s Sunday Magazine creative director and worked in New York City for various magazine publishers, including Condé Nast and Primedia, for over 20 years.
