Hispanic culture on display at City Hall gallery featuring Latino artists

BOWIE, Md. – About 75 people filled Bowie City Hall Sept. 26 for an art show celebrating local Latino artists.

The group exhibition, titled “Arte Del Alma: The Spirit of Hispanic Heritage,” means Art of the Soul and features 35 works on display through Nov. 9. The city’s arts and diversity committees jointly sponsored the artists' reception in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.

It was a chance for artists to connect directly with gallery attendees, from Bowie residents to fellow artists to Bowie City Council members.

“I learned the impact of art is where it speaks, from the soul,” Bowie City Councilmember Clinton Truesdale Sr., said.

Upper Marlboro resident Michael Haynes expressed appreciation for this cultural event. 

“I’m glad I came here this evening,” said Haynes, whose daughter works in Bowie. “We celebrate heritage ... people of color, brown, white; it’s all right here.”

Visual artist Camila Leão displayed three rainforest-themed pieces at the reception and recalled how her early love of arts and crafts kindled a passion for painting.

Since she was a kid in Sao Paulo, Leão said she was always drawn to arts and crafts. "After a while, I felt that my passion is really crafting things with my hands and painting,” Leão said.

The reception was an opportunity for visitors to hear the story behind the art and trace the artist’s journey, which has taken Leão from her native Brazil to the Baltimore suburbs. Her work transports gallery visitors to the South American rainforest with vibrant paintings of wildlife in their lush environment.

After studying graphic design in college, her work has become a mix of digital illustrations and paintings.“The paintings, for me, are really special because that’s how it can 100% express myself,” Leão said.

Leão moved to the United States five years ago and is currently a Baltimore County resident, one of 10 artists participating in the show that opened Sept. 21. Together, they represent several countries across the Americas, including Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico and Uruguay.

Janae Barber, City of Bowie Community Outreach manager, reached out to Leão and the other participants urging them to apply for the group exhibition. She said the art reception was a perfect opportunity for the Bowie community to learn about other cultures.

“The art breaks the barrier between people who have one type of comfortability in their culture. It allows people to understand those who we don’t know so well and what their experiences are and how they’ve grown from it,” Barber said.

One of the pieces Leão presented, the “Sukari,” is based on the anaconda snake found in tropical South America.

Acrylic painting titled, “The Sukari” by Camila Leão. Courtesy of the City of Bowie.

“I focus on painting Brazilian elements, one of my main themes for painting,” Leão said. “For this piece, what drew my inspiration was the biodiversity, ... the sukari snake,” she said. “It's a powerful symbol in Brazilian folklore.” 

Winding its way up the center of the acrylic painting is the pinkish-purple snake, its body coiled around a banana tree and its wide eyes peering through the leaves.  Her work is meant to uncover some of “the mystery” of the rainforest , Leão said.

The Sao Paulo native’s art journey started at her mother’s textile shop in Brazil that inspired her as a young girl. The craftsman’s eye for detail is seen in her paintings of the natural world.

Lillian Jacobson, a figure painter in Baltimore County, shared four works at the reception, each a form of cultural expression.

“I want to really use portraiture and figurative painting to go into what is the essence of each person,” Jacobson said. “I want to be able to use people’s personalities and have that shine.”

One of Jacobson’s pieces is a self-portrait called, “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now,” referencing a song lyric from Canadian-American songwriter Joni Mitchell.

The song, “Both Sides Now,” evoked Jacobson’s dual identity as a transracial adoptee.

“So it is exploring my own identity through portraits with clouds laid over top, and the clouds are really symbolizing a moment of contemplation,” Jacobson said. “It’s a mirror that we look at like when you’re looking at the clouds, and you make meaning out of the different shapes you see.”

Oil and acrylic painting titled, “I’ve Looked at Clouds From Both Sides Now” by Lillian Jacobson. Xavier Board/The Bowie Sun

The acrylic and oil portrait features red, blue and yellow color schemes, a nod to her native country of Colombia, before moving to Baltimore County as a child.

Born in Bogotá, she said her self-portrait explores her cultural identity depicted by her two hands “trying to navigate the question of “Who am I?”

“My parents are not Latine, so it’s somewhat of a weird dynamic,” Jacobson said. “Am I Latina enough? Am I American enough? Literally, what am I?”

Jacobson’s art career started at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she graduated in 2016 with a painting degree and was offered a studio job after graduation.  But she found she had little energy to devote to her own art, which took a backseat to her career. 

“It just became a gradual decline of me putting the energy I needed into that,” Jacobson said of her yearslong hiatus.

With her new series, she found a balance between working on her pieces and her day job. “I am not going to be that person who works more than 40 hours a week ...,” she said.

From 2022 to now, the Colombian native has art on exhibit not just in Bowie, but across various group exhibitions in Maryland, such as the Maryland Art Place and Chesapeake Arts Center.

Francisco Loza, a yarn artist from Mexico, is no stranger to artistic recognition in his native community. His work previously was on display at the Embassy of Mexico and the Keswick gallery in Washington, D.C.

“I do a lot of pieces about Mexico, like little pueblos, towns and also people Indigenous. And for me, it's really special,” Loza said. “I like it to show ... how proud I am for my race and also for my people.”

A piece made with beads and yarn, titled “Proteccion” by Francisco Loza. Courtesy of the City of Bowie.

Loza’s work is created on wood surfaces covered in wax and shaped with multicolored yarn and beaded pieces.

The Maryland resident displayed five works at the reception, including one called “Proteccion,”or “proteccion,” a depiction of the Huichol Indigenous people of Mexico's Sierra Madre de Chiapas.

He said he was given permission to attend ceremonies in the Chiapas highlands not open for people to walk through in the 70s, Loza said. “That was where I created it.”

He credits these Indigenous artisans for his technique, which he further developed over a decade. “And the beauty about this, I learned from people that never went to school, I never went to school to learn art,” Loza said.

From there, Loza worked at an art studio in Mexico before moving to the United States in the early 2000s.

He continued to attend joint exhibitions around the United States and Mexico, in addition to interactive workshops for students and adults of all ages across Maryland, Delaware, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and California.

He summed up the power of art this way: “With my hands, I can talk through your eyes, and we can make dialogue.”

Several other Latino and Hispanic artists have works on display at City Hall:

• Paula Zaremba, of Mexican and Salvadoran descent, uses art to explore grief.
• Cezar Sanchez-Morazzani, of Peru, uses artistic detail to reflect emotions.
• Catherine Mapp, of Mexican, Cuban of Guyanese heritage, explored human experience.
• Aynex Mercado, of Puerto Rico, has created art quilts for over 20 years.
• Irene Pantelis, of Bolivia and Uruguay, infused magic realism.
• Erika Lozano, of Salvador, is a self-taught artist.
• Emely Rodriguez, of Salvador, writes poetry and shared one piece of artwork.

Xavier Board covers Bowie as part of the University of Maryland Local News Network.

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