THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO: ART OF THE AMERICAS, GREEK AND ROMAN

 Hello everyone! welcome to another Saturday blog post.

For this post I want to share what I saw in THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO, my favorite pieces during the visit, so get ready for a long time looking art.

Starting with Marc Chagall stained glass “America Windows” which celebrated the United States and its culture, it was amazing to see Chagall stained glass as I gave a video about his biography and I talked about his work with strained glass. 💙

Another piece is the painting from Chagall that I saw was “Birth” a cubist piece from 1912 where we see the birth of Chagall’s brother David in the family home around 1892, an especially powerful memory from the artist’s early life. I think here we can see all about Chagall’s passions: Family, Circus, surrealism, cubism, colors and shapes as stained glass.

Then ai jumped to Greeks, Romans and Byzantine art. I like very much some sculptures and here some favorites:

-Abduction of Persephone

-Bound roster mosaic

-Fish on a platter mosaic

-Marine life mosaic

I had the chance to see American Gothic by Grant Wood with the farmers posed stiffly and dressed as if they were, as the artist put it, They stand outside their home, built in an 1880s style known as Carpenter Gothic. Wood had seen a similar farmhouse during a visit to Eldon, Iowa and I confirmed it, I never visited but it’s a well-known place.

🦴 Cow’s Skull with Calico Roses by Georgia O’ Keeffe, she collected a lot of skulls and bones in New Mexico and even she took some to New York. She noted, “To me they are as beautiful as anything I know... The bones seem to cut sharply to the center of something that is keenly alive on the desert.”

🌺 Red Hills with Flowers, 1937 also by Georgia O'Keeffe.

She loved the contrasts in scale, she said "All the earth colors of the painter's palette are out there in the many miles of badlands. The light Naples yellow through the ochers orange and red and purple earth even the soft earth greens." And I'm agree.

🪨 Fragment of a Funerary Lekythos

4th century BCE, only prominent families would have had the means to immortalize their loved ones by having their names set in stone.

🏺 Water Jar Hydria, Created by an artist known as the Leningrad Painter, the front of this vessel shows intimate scenes of couples, they are unusual in Greek art.

🐪 Byzantine mosaics with tiny cubes from the 5th century with details of camels, giraffes and dogs, they have flowers and hearts. They were found in the Mediterranean

🧐Icon with the Virgin and Child from by Cretan School c. 1500

Painted with tempera and golden leaf over wood panel, it takes my attention the little perforations it has to make the patterns. I don't know why I always like to see Virgin with child paintings as they are so they portray the same image.

🤍 Eye detail of a Portrait Bust of a Woman

Craved by a very talented sculpture, I noticed she has the hearts on her eyes just like David by Michelangelo 😍 love it!

🌞 Fragment of a Portrait Statue of a Man, Perhaps a Roman Emperor with a stunning ceremonial armor suggests that he was a general or even the emperor, as the latter held the role of commander of the Roman army. I love the little faces!

Art of the Americas, here a favorites.

Twilight c. 1926 by Hale Woodruff it’s so beautiful because the messy brushstrokes and bright and warm colors. 🥰

Nighthawks 1942 by Edward Hopper,

This is the second painting that I have the privilege to see. “unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city.”

It was discovered or revealed by his wife that before making the painting he made a full detailed script about how this painting had to be done. ✍🏻

Untitled c. 1938–41 by Jackson Pollock

Pollock became engaged in an intense dialogue with the work of the Mexican muralists José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros; he was inspired by their social commitment and use of primitive, archetypal imagery. And of course we can notice how similar style has from Picasso. 🎨

Portrait of Marevna, c. 1915 by Diego Rivera

Here we can see when Diego Rivera enjoyed a brief but sparkling period as a Cubist painter. He made the portrait of one of his lovers and we can see all the elements like a puzzle. 🧩

Love of Winter 1914 by George Wesley Bellows.

In January 1914 George Bellows wrote to a friend, "There has been none of my favorite snow. I must always paint the snow at least once a year." Soon after, on February 13, a major blizzard hit New York City, inspiring the artist to paint Love of Winter.

Imagine to dress that nice during a blizzard in the Midwest 😜

The Milliners, 1921 by Theresa F. Bernstein.

"In The Milliners, Theresa Bernstein depicted a group of women sewing accessories on hats, exploring the aesthetic qualities of community and concentration. The window at upper left suggests that they are in a city apartment, perhaps undertaking piecework at home to earn extra income." That's what the people who wrote this think. I like the way some looks so focused and some others looking other women. 👀

RUNING WITH THE WOLVES MY NEWEST PAINTING, ARIEL AND CHICAGO DOWNTOWN

 HELLO! HAPPY BLOGGING!

Today I want to share that I have finally finished my painting "Running with the wolves"

In 2024, I became completely captivated by Aurora's song Running with the Wolves. It haunted me day and night—it played in my mind when I walked, when I painted, even when I woke up in the stillness of the night. At times, the obsession was almost maddening, but as an artist, madness can be a blessing when we know how to address it, so I had to paint and looking back, I understand why, let me show you…

There was something in the voice, the rhythm, the lyrics of the song that spoke directly to a part of me. It arrived in my life during a moment that fitted perfectly, I was living a struggle and trying to understand it.

Then I saw a picture of a women with a wolf in the desert and I loved her pose, so I did my own design adding the wolves and all the elements that I saw on my imagination.

Like my painting, the song is about embracing the unknown, awakening to who we are at our core, even when the world around us feels like it's collapsing. But we need to listen to the call to trust our instincts, to risk everything.

That's how I feel about the song, and that's how I feel about my painting.

I’ve always felt a connection with wolves—not as symbols of the pack, but as sacred guides who appear in solitude. They remind me that being alone doesn't mean being lost. It means listening closely, they came to remind me of the wonders of solitude. There are two wolves in the painting because the song speaks in the plural. But in truth, I've always been the lone wolf. This artwork marks the metamorphosis of that spirit—my feminine essence merging with theirs. The woman in the painting isn't just running with them. She is one of them now, just like me.

She is at the center, looking serene feeling the sun on her face with her eyes closed and a single tear on her cheek faces left, I added the tears at the end as I thought this could be my own reflection, about how the tears have been transmuted by the loneliness and how that pain also brings wisdom, so the tears go straight to the wolves, and they as experts of loneliness know exactly how to use them to grow the flowers.

The wolves are symbols of intuition, guardianship, resilience and wild energy. Their fur blends into the surrounding flora, painted with expressive, flowing brushstrokes.

Now, Behind her, the blazing sun isn't just a backdrop. It’s an aura—fierce, incandescent. It mirrors the desert sun of my homeland in Ciudad Juarez, where beauty and harshness coexist. The roses beside her, melting and ephemeral, echo that contradiction.

We don't have roses like these in the desert, but we do have what we call desert roses—they are stones born from sand and time, shaped by the wind into crystalline petals. I painted both kinds into this piece: the ones that bloom and perish, and the ones that endure.

You might wonder—why the mountains?
The mountains hold special meaning for me. They represent  Pikes Peak in Colorado, the first place I had to call home after leaving my country, my job, my family, and my friends. The mountains are red to reflect the meaning of the word Colorado, which refers to the color red and I have included a small moon that makes company to the wolves.

Running with the wolves isn't about rebellion in the literal sense. It's about embodying the spirit of the wolf—embracing our independence, our resilience, and the power of solitude when we are no longer part of the pack.

The branches sprouting from her head may seem unusual, but they're intentional as a last minute idea when I was painting her head. They represent the return to inner stillness, the sacred pause of spiritual drought. Even in arid seasons, we are not swept away. We carry the sun inside us—our solar plexus, our inner flame or Christ, where we don't need water to flourish because our inner light, our sun here in the plexus is our own spring. And from that light, we bloom and shine.

Traditionally, roots would be represented growing from the feet, keeping us grounded like the trees, our connection to this earth, but mine are in my head like a common ideaThey're not tied to any land, because I don't feel rooted anywhere, not physically. My home is in my heart and my imagination and my spirit has wings to fly free.

This 36 by 48” acrylic painting is a vibrant, powerful composition blending portraits, symbolism, and nature in a surreal, emotionally scene. This piece is available HERE

Last week I sold a print of Ariel for the first time. This is an image of a painting I did in oil that I sold in 2016 and now I have prints available. 

Ariel the Sylph, character from The Tempest, by William Shakespeare. 🧚‍♂️ 💫 ✍🏻

🎨 This image belongs to my original work with oils on oil paper. This mythological character from a world of Fairies belongs to the play The Tempest by Shakespeare, I have portrayed the actor Colin Morgan who was the actor who gave life to this character in a play in London.

Ariel is a wind spirit with peacock wings and an ethereal look fading away between the clouds surrounded by doves.

ABOUT THE CHARACTER:

Sylph (also called sylphid) is a mythological air spirit. The term originates in the 16th-century works of Paracelsus, who describes sylphs as (invisible beings) of the air, his elementals of air.

Ariel is a spirit who appears in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Ariel is bound to serve the magician Prospero, who rescued him from the tree in which he was imprinted by Sycorax, the witch who previously inhabited the island. Prospero greets disobedience with a reminder that he saved Ariel from Sycorax's spell, and with promises to grant Ariel his freedom. Ariel is Prospero's eyes and ears throughout the play, using his magical abilities to cause the tempest in Act One which gives the play its name, and to foil other characters' plots to bring down his master.

Ariel's name means Lion of God. Ariel may also be a simple play on the word "aerial".

Prints available HERE

After months of work finally I had some distraction, this time I went to Chicago, here some favorite images from my gallery.

I saw the mural Eye Candy over the "Mag Mile" by the artist Jeff Zimmermann and looks so colorful and just like those candy rings.

I did the boat tour and totally worth it, taking an architectural boat tour along the Chicago River is one of the most immersive ways to appreciate the city's iconic skyline. As you glide past the water, you'll encounter architectural marvels that tell Chicago's vivid story of innovation.

Guided commentary brings to life the history, design, and personalities behind over 40–50 key buildings and bridges lining the river.  Seeing Chicago’s skyline from the river offers an ever-shifting perspective highlighting reflection, facade details, and how the structures relate to one another on the riverfront.

Looks beautiful how the blue-green glass of many riverside skyscrapers seems to mirror the water below—creating a harmonious visual dialogue between the city and the river.

Tours often weave in Chicago's rise after the Great Fire of 1871, the birth of the modern skyscraper, and the city's evolution in architectural styles—from Art Deco to modernist and postmodern designs.

Chicago's skyline just gained a bold new symbol for the planet. In celebration of World Environment Day 2025, a 245-foot mural titled “Stand Tall” it pictures a girl with a deer surrounded with swirl shapes created by acclaimed Dutch artist Mr. Super A.

Here’s a gorgeous image of the “Wings of Mexico” sculpture, a stunning bronze installation by Mexican artist Jorge Marín that graced Chicago’s downtown in 2022.

The bronze wings that invite passersby to stand between them and become part of the artwork, a powerful symbol of freedom, hope, and the immigrant experience.

TO WATCH: Here you will find all about my painting and behind the scenes.

Happy Lion month!