Opening reception: Friday, March 20, 6 pm - 8 pm
From brightly colored paintings of family life and community to portraits in wood and stone, Chicago artist Roman Villarreal’s work carries the weight and joy of his lived experience. A prolific maker working since the 1970s, Villarreal shares the rich history of his South Chicago neighborhood and Mexican heritage.
Roman Villarreal, a south-side Chicago native, worked in the region's steel mills and, over fifty years ago, began producing work reflecting on the people, places, and life experiences of his community. As a self-taught artist, Villarreal approaches materials with a fresh mind, employing everything from rare stone sourced from around the world to soap bought down the street. His mastery of materials—alabaster, marble, limestone, serpentine, acrylic—has resulted in public commissions, notably Tribute to the Past (2015) at Steelworkers Park in Chicago’s southeast side and a recent installation of limestone turtles (2025) for the Indiana Indigenous Trail located at the Indiana Visitors Center, Porter, IN. In 2023, Villarreal's work was celebrated in South Chicago Legacies, a solo retrospective at Chicago's Intuit Art Museum. His work is held in private and public collections, including the Intuit Art Museum and the National Museum of Mexican Art.
Artist Talk: Sunday, April 12, 2 pm
