Arts & Entertainment
Artist Uses Recycled Cardboard to Craft a Personal Story of Perseverance
Self-taught artist GuarAcibo shaped and crafted the discarded cardboard into an exhibition he calls “La Mudanza.” (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
Reynaldo Rodriguez depicts his personal odyssey in sculptures made from moving boxes and packages from Amazon.
These upcycled containers contain the story of his long road from Puerto Rico to Chicago.
“During the pandemic I couldn’t find paint,” Rodriguez told WTTW News. “I started cleaning my storage unit, and said well, the boxes are here. Let me do something with them.”
“I came to live here in Chicago 30 years back,” said Rodriguez, who adopted the nickname “GuarAcibo” (loosely translated as “brave man”) when he discovered another artist with the same name as him.
WTTW News met GuarAcibo at the old firehouse in the Avondale neighborhood, home to the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance (PRAA).
The self-taught artist shaped and crafted the discarded cardboard into an exhibition he calls “La Mudanza.”
“What it means in English is ‘the move,’ like moving,” he said. “I used boxes to represent the moving and traveling from Puerto Rico to Florida to New York to Chicago.”
Guaracibo uses upcycled containers to tell the story of his long road from Puerto Rico to Chicago. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
There’s just one painting in the exhibition, but it anchors the story.
“This is my journey as an artist together in one painting,” he said. “The baby is my kid — he’s got autism. The heart is, well, I’ve had four heart attacks and survived all of them.”
GuarAcibo is also a muralist and teacher in the PRAA’s Studio Arts program where his soon-to-start spring classes are themed “Recycling for Art.”
Curator Jorge Felix was surprised when he first saw the work.
“I’ve known him for some time, and I know him as a painter,” Felix said. “He told me: ‘I’m working on a new series that’s cardboard,’ and I fell in love with the pieces. I saw myself reflected in them.”
The work also reflects an interest in mysticism and the Afro-Caribbean religion sometimes called Santeria. Both the artist and the curator prefer to call it Lucumi, which is rooted in the Yoruba religion of West Africa.
“My spiritual guide takes me through the different eras of my life,” said GuarAcibo. “Most of the art has symbolism from Taino [the Indigenous culture of the Caribbean]. For me it’s a spiritual journey.”
“I also practice African religion from the Caribbean,” said Jorge Felix. “And those elements are here in the art. As a curator sometimes you don’t want to touch those subjects nobody speaks about, because many tend to associate African religion or something Indigenous as something that’s evil or taboo.”
“I don’t even like to call it religion,” Felix added. “For me it’s a spirituality.”
Pointing to the first work in the exhibition — the first chapter in the timeline of his life — the artist had a simple explanation: “When I was born, I had the blessing of art.”
“La Mudanza” opens at the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance, 3000 N. Elbridge Ave., on Thursday, April 17 and runs through November.
Guaracibo has a new exhibition he calls “La Mudanza” at the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)
Marc Vitali is the JCS Fund of the DuPage Foundation Arts Correspondent.
