Cecilia Beaven

b. Mexico City, Mexico; lives in Chicago, IL
Open February 28, 2024

Curator Exhibition Statement

Cecilia Beaven is a multidisciplinary artist from Mexico City based in Chicago. Through her art, which includes painting, drawing, comics, animation, weaving and sculpture, Cecilia explores cultural identity as a mutating narrative, rather than a fixed attribute. Beaven’s work extends beyond the two dimensions of the canvas and transforms the pictorial into the cinematic and scenographic.The artist affirms her active participation in the making of culture by modifying existing tales and mythology and seamlessly adding personal anecdotes, culminating in a ludic development of personal mythology. Beaven draws on her life in Mexico City and her mythological, ethnographic and introspective explorations to create a narrative in which intriguing and absurd mythical creatures and landscapes make us aware of the fictional nature of the artist’s world, staging a monstrous, fragile and introspective setting. Beaven’s juxtaposition of culture and fiction brings a unique perspective on Mexican identity that goes beyond folklore and mainstream ideas of Mexico.

- Curated for phICA by Taylor Marshall

The phICA Virtual Exhibitions Initiative is made possible through the generous support of Arizona Commission on the Arts/National Endowment for the Arts, City of Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture, Laurie and Tom Carmody/The Carmody Foundation, Brendan Mahoney and Gordon Street, Bobby Walker and Michael L. Zirulnik, Erin Hubbard, and Ted Decker Catalyst Fund.

Curator Exhibition Statement