After studying in San Francisco and across Europe, she settled in Philadelphia, but her culture and the areas where she spent her youth were always close to her art. Her primary artistic medium is painting rich with gold leafing and symbolism of Latin America. After studying photography at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia Trillo wanted to photograph immigration along the borderlands from Mexico in North America, but found it too risky for those involved in crossing.
While at a church in Juarez she met a maid they called Luli. Luli shared with Trillo that she was a former prostitute and offered to take her to visit the brothels in an effort to bring more awareness to the plight of the young women there. Their only reason for survival is drugs. After meeting the women for the first time, it became important to Trillo that they tell their stories.
She wanted to portray their dignity while also showing the truth of their harsh conditions. Trillo wanted to do something to help them, and thought that what she could offer was helping these women find their voice through her art. In this way, she realized would not be recasting their stories through her own perspective, but that through the images, could tell their own stories through her lens. When you see art, you have to feel something, if you see it and you feel nothing then it does not touch you.
Trillo spent three to four months at a time over 3 three years with the women of Juarez brothels. Starting in early , she went to visit the girls. While laws vary from State to State, of the 31 States in Mexico 13 have laws regulating prostitution and, according to the United States State Department, only 22 of those States have laws against sex trafficking, but they are rarely enforced.
Trillo saw this for herself in Juarez. The areas where prostitution is decriminalized are commonly referred to as "zonas de tolerancia". Sex work by those over the age of 18 is generally accepted, sex with a minor under the age of 18 is expressly illegal throughout all States in Mexico.
