Cecilia Beaven

Multidisciplinary Visual Artist and Art Instructor

2024 3Arts Awards

Visual Arts

Cecilia Beaven (she/her) is a Chicago-based visual artist and art instructor from Mexico City. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Studio from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which she pursued as a Fulbright scholar, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts with honors from ENPEG La Esmeralda (Mexico City). Cecilia’s multidisciplinary artwork has been shown in solo shows in Mexico City, Houston, and Chicago, as well as in group exhibitions in Mexico, the U.S., Colombia, Sweden, Italy, and Japan. She has painted murals in several cities such as Hiketa, Paris, Houston, Chicago, Mexico City, Oaxaca, Pachuca, Tepoztlan, and Tijuana, where she was commissioned to paint a segment of the border wall between Mexico and the U.S.

Through her work, which includes painting, drawing, animation, film, and sculpture, Cecilia develops a speculative mythology with unique visual narratives, questioning who can tell stories and establish the official cultural narratives. She affirms her creative agency by modifying existing tales and mythology and seamlessly adding fiction and personal anecdotes. Through this analytical and ludic experimentation, Cecilia brings a unique perspective on Mexican identity that goes beyond folklore and mainstream ideas of Mexico.

Cecilia is a 2024 3Arts/Chandler Family Awardee and a 2024 Chicago Artists Coalition Resident. She has also been the recipient of distinctions such as the year-long Radicle Studio Residency at Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, 2021), the Leroy Neiman Foundation Fellowship at Ox-Bow School of Art (Saugatuck, 2019), and the Fulbright Scholarship program (2017). In 2022, she was considered one of the “100 Most Creative Mexicans in the World” by Forbes Mexico, and in 2023 she was included in the “Art 50 – Chicago’s Artists’ Artists” list by NewCity.

Cecilia Beaven's Website

two humans kneel and flowers bloom from figures

Inflorescence, 2022 Image by Jonathan Castillo

Featured Artworks

Black and white illustration of people on a large white wall which reads No Human Being Is Illegal.

Viajeros Extraordinarios (Extraordinary Travelers), 2024 Acrylic enamel on wall, 9.8’ x 65.6’

Installation shots of sculptures and zines in a blue walled gallery/

Installation shots from the solo exhibition Semilla at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 2024 Paintings, mural, ceramics, drawings, papier-mâché, and hand-drawn digital animation

Multiple images from the opening of an exhibition. The artwork includes illustrations of people on colorful walls.

Aquí en Chicago (Exhibition Murals and Interactive Cylinder), 2025 Acrylic enamel on wall and vinyl prints on cylinder (cylinder design by: Daniel Oliver)

Multiple images from a project that involves an illustrated guide where objects are illustrated.

Aquí en Chicago (Exhibition's Visual Identity Button, Catalog, and Toolkit for Social Change Icons), 2025

Small sculptures on a pedestal and three paintings of colorful animals with blooms on the wall.

Installation shots from the solo exhibition Flickering Cocoon at Hyde Park Art Center, 2024 Acrylic on canvas, high-temperature ceramics, acrylic enamel on wooden panels

A building painted black with colorful images of animals and plantlife on top.

Swamp, mural at Columbia College Chicago, 2024 Part of the Wabash Art Corridor Acrylic enamel on wall, 26’ x 90’

The artist kneels in front of a colorful mural of pink/yellow/blue flowers on a brick wall.

Growth, mural at the Erie Division Street Health Center at Humboldt Park, 2024 Spray paint and acrylic enamel on wooden panels, 12’ x 40’

image divided into three panels, show humans kneeling with plants surrounding them

Sprouting Shadows (tryptic), 2024 Image by Jonas Müller-Ahlheim

Bulb, 2022 Image by Jonathan Castillo