National Arts Centre Kipnes Lantern
I was commissioned by the National Arts Centre (NAC) to create Again and Again, a large-scale installation for the Kipnes Lantern in Ottawa as part of the NAC’s celebration of Latin American Heritage Month. Inspired by Mexican tile design and folk art, the piece explores repetition as both a visual language and a metaphor for community. The repeated forms create a sense of movement and rhythm while reflecting on the idea that community is a constant presence we can return to and lean on.
Designed to shift as viewers move around the Lantern, the installation reveals changing relationships between colour, shape, and pattern. The piece was designed to spark curiosity and invite people to pause, look up, and hopefully experience a moment of visual delight.
You can read more the inspiration and ideas behind Again and Again in the feature: Vibrant Colour As A Language of Mexican Resilience on the National Arts Centre website.
Image Credit: National Arts Centre
Again And Again
Inspired by Mexican tile design and folk art, repetition plays a central role in my practice. I use it as a visual structure to create movement and rhythm that spark curiosity and reward close looking.
In this piece, I explore repetition as a form of permanence. Simple shapes, in all their purity, when arranged with intention and repeated with boldness, can become something larger and more enduring. For me, this speaks to the small, consistent actions that shape our lives. Despite life’s ups and downs, showing up, staying engaged, and being part of a community can create a sense of continuity and something to lean on.
I am equally interested in the rhythm of colour and its ability to influence how we feel. In my work, colour becomes a language, one that is both cultural and deeply personal. Rooted in my Mexican heritage, with its unapologetic, defiant optimism, and shaped by my own lived experience, my work becomes a conversation in that language. Through shape, colour, and pattern, my work invites viewers to pause, engage, and experience what I like to call dopamina mexicana.