Viajeros Extraordinarios
SEPTEMBER 7 - NOVEMBER 30
Viajeros Extraordinarios draws its inspiration from the quotation by Elie Wiesel, “no human being is illegal,” a phrase first used by the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate on a flyer for the "National Campaign for the Civil and Human Rights of Salvadorans" in 1988. The phrase has become a rallying cry for immigrant rights groups and activists as well as Centro Romero which was established forty years ago by refugees fleeing El Salvador’s Civil War.
Viajeros Extraordinarios consists of a site-specific mural inspired by the artists collaboration with the youth program and community of Centro Romero. The mural itself becomes a backdrop for a series of paintings inspired by the artist’s encounters with individuals across the city of Chicago. In addition to her work in the gallery, Beaven, with the assistance of participants in Centro’s Youth Program, completed a public mural at the corner of Ravenswood and Granville.
In her site-specific murals and paintings, Beaven seamlessly blends references to her own Mexican identity and her experiences as an immigrant to the US with the narratives, visual languages and mythologies of her home country. Her signature style is at once analytic and playful, prompting questions about how and by whom stories are told and cultural narratives established.
Cecilia Beaven is a visual artist and art instructor from Mexico City, based in Chicago. Cecilia holds an MFA in Studio from SAIC which she pursued as a Fulbright scholar and a BFA with honors from ENPEG La Esmeralda (Mexico City). Cecilia’s multidisciplinary artwork has been shown in solo shows in Mexico City, Houston, and Chicago, as well as in group exhibitions in Mexico, the US, Colombia, Sweden, Italy, and Japan. She has painted murals in several cities such as Hiketa, Paris, Houston, Chicago, Mexico City, Oaxaca, Pachuca, Tepoztlan, and Tijuana, where she was commissioned to paint a segment of the border wall between Mexico and the US.
Cecilia is a 2024 resident at Chicago Artists Coalition. She has also been the recipient of distinctions like the year-long Radicle Studio Residency at Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago (2021), the Leroy Neiman Foundation Fellowship at Ox-Bow School of Art, in Saugatuck, Michigan (2019), and the Fulbright program (2017). In 2022 she was considered one of the “100 Most Creative Mexicans in the World” by Forbes Mexico, and in 2023 she was included in the“Art 50 – Chicago’s Artists Artists” list by NewCity magazine.
The mural painting process
The exhibition opening will be on Saturday, September 7, 2024 from 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm