Yue Li (Block Club Chicago) Chicago-based artist Janice Aponte is part of a group exhibition— “Soy Boricua”—through December 16, at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Art and Culture (located at Humboldt Park, 3015 West Division Street, Chicago, Illinois.) [Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.]
Janice Aponte, a Chicago-based Puerto Rican artist, didn’t pick up painting and study it professionally until she was almost 30 years old. Until then, she’d only sketched at home.
“I feel like because of my age, it’s just more of a motivation,” Aponte said in her Portage Park home studio, surrounded by bold color portraits and abstract paintings. “It actually makes me even more aggressive about it, to really pour myself into my art.’”
Aponte’s painting titled “Flower Girl,” the first piece in her “Flower” series, is on display at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Art and Culture in Humboldt Park as part of the “Soy Boricua” collaborative exhibition, which runs through Dec. 16. Early next year, she aims to have her first solo art exhibition in Chicago.
Earlier this month, her painting titled “Abuelita’s Casita” was installed as a permanent collection at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Art and Culture, 3015 W. Division St. [. . .]
She’s opening a 1,000-square-foot gallery studio at 5504 W. Lawrence Ave. in January, planning for a soft opening in February and a ribbon-cutting in the spring. “Janice never stops,” said artist and muralist John Vergara, a Humboldt Park native and Aponte’s friend of 15 years. “When she said she’s gonna do something, she gets it done. She works like no one that I know, male or female.”
For the 54-year-old Aponte, art spreads a sense of joy and helps her connect to her island and share her culture with the community. Aponte was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and grew up in New York, where her parents moved when she was 10 months old. At age 15, a few years after her parents divorced, she returned to Ponce with her mother and sister.
When Aponte was 25, she moved to Chicago with her then-husband. Although her mother noted that Aponte started sketching with carbon pencils when she was 6, art was never a “priority” for her.
“My life was always interrupted by these going back and forth,” Aponte said. “I’m originally not from Chicago, so [art] was a way for me to ground myself, find a sense of community and serve the community. It gives me a sense of belonging.” [. . .]
For full article, see https://blockclubchicago.org/2023/11/29/artist-janice-aponte-honors-puerto-rican-roots-in-flower-girl-exhibition
For more information on the exhibition, see https://nmprac.org/soy-boricua
Yue Li (Block Club Chicago) Chicago-based artist Janice Aponte is part of a group exhibition— “Soy Boricua”—through December 16, at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Art and Culture (located at Humboldt Park, 3015 West Division Street, Chicago, Illinois.) [Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.] Janice Aponte, a Chicago-based Puerto Rican
