Guided Tour: Portals with Silvia López Chavez

Join us for a guided tour celebrating the work of Boston-based artist Silvia López Chavez. This tour explores her vibrant new outdoor commission, Chromatic Portals, alongside her immersive indoor mural, Touching the Portal.

Chromatic Portals transforms the South Lawn into a luminous landscape of movement and light. Three immersive doorways (or portals) represent a symbolic threshold into Land, Water, and Sky. Printed patterns echo forms found in leaf veins, mycelium networks, rippling water, and spiraling galaxies.

Inside the museum, a large-scale mural continues this exploration of the natural world. Touching the Portal immerses the museum in color, pattern, and imagery from the natural world. Some imagery (such as the ginkgo leaf and the nautilus shell) interweave concepts about nature’s resilience and design. Through these and other references, López Chavez’s mural signals hidden orders of nature.

This tour offers close-looking, conversation, and insight into the artist’s materials, influences, and vision.