Welcome to the luminous kaleidoscopic sanctuary presented in Flickering Cocoon. Artist Cecilia Beaven weaves together big concepts like creationism and time with everyday practices of yoga and humor, to consider the interconnectivity between the spiritual and physical realms. In her artwork, she composes animal, plant, and female forms bending, leaping, and sprouting from one another. Here, the cycle of life and death is not to be feared, but rather playfully embraced. Influenced by her Mexican heritage, Beaven enlists her neon-hued fantastic imagery which glows on a gray void of a backdrop to propose that culture is a non-fixed entity. Instead, culture is something dependent on human agency to create and change in order to help society adapt to an ever-evolving world.
Strongly rooted in the graphic illustration tradition, Beaven moves beyond comics and animation at Hyde Park Art Center to make active paintings, assemblages, tiles, handwoven textiles and clay sculptures. Her versatility in materials is matched by her broad range of scale from the small vessels of women in Untitled (Mujeres I-II) to the larger than lifesize crocodile female figures in her murals and canvas painting series Cipactli’s Bloom. Through her bold lines and bright colors she pays homage to the Mexican Alebrijes folk art tradition of whimsical mythical beasts as figurines that are used to ward off negative spirits. Much of Beaven’s imagery originates from her interpretations of the Mesoamerican creation myth of Cipactli, the giant crocodile that became the earth and germinated all life. By reinterpreting the woman in crocodile clothing, the artist mischievously challenges who is responsible for the creation of humankind.
The female figure in child’s pose is an important and recurring symbol in Beaven’s work. It is a self-portrait in the nude because it is the most true and authentic form of self. The artist admits, “My clothes do not define me.” The balled-up position is used in yoga to alleviate tension, feel grounded in the earth, and induce calm. The artist thinks about this position as a seed (semilla), and it is a metaphor for the process of deep growth that comes from rest.
Flickering Cocoon is the companion exhibition to Semilla concurrently on view in the Xicágo Gallery at the National Museum of Mexican Art from October 24, 2024 until March 30, 2025. Through this institutional collaboration of two solo exhibitions presenting new murals by Cecilia Beaven, the artist reflects on her journey from Mexico to Chicago and the creative communities that sustain her evolving art practice.
banner image: detail of Flickering Cocoon, 2023, Acrylic enamel on wood boards, 96 x 432 inches
featured image on the main exhibition page: Cipactli’s Bloom (I-III), 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 80 x 40 inches each canvas
