Hidden Blooms Public Preview with Daniela Oliver de Portillo

Join us at Sala Diaz for a special one-night preview of Hidden Blooms, an interactive art installation by San Antonio-based artist Daniela Oliver de Portillo. Experience the full collection of ceramic and cyanotype artworks for the first and only time, before it’s distributed along the San Antonio River for visitors discover and collect.

Each clay vessel is adorned with delicate paper cyanotype flowers and accompanied by a bilingual message celebrating the strength and resilience of modern womanhood. Meet the artist, learn more about her process, and take part in a moment of collective reflection before these intimate artworks are dispersed into the landscape to be discovered by the community.

📅 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM, Saturday, August 2, 2025
📍 Sala Diaz (517 Stieren, SATX 78210)
🎟 Free & open to the public

Hidden Blooms is an interactive art installation along the San Antonio River that places approximately 40 hand-built ceramic vases, each adorned with delicate paper cyanotype flowers. This project explores the intersection of nature, domesticity, and community engagement, inviting visitors to experience an unexpected moment of beauty, reflection, and connection.

Each ceramic vase is uniquely crafted, emphasizing the fragility and resilience inherent in both natural and human forms. Accompanying each piece is a bilingual message—offered in both Spanish and English—celebrating the strength, complexity, and perseverance of modern womanhood. These messages serve as affirmations of encouragement, fostering a deeper sense of connection between the artwork and its audience.

Designed as an ephemeral yet deeply personal experience, Hidden Blooms unfolds gradually over time. Vases are placed in areas surrounding the Mission Reach Art Portals —large artworks established as gateways to the World Heritage Mission Sites —waiting to be discovered by passersby. Upon finding a vase, individuals are invited to take it home as a keepsake, symbolizing an intimate exchange between artist, viewer, and environment.

Hidden Blooms is commissioned by the San Antonio River Foundation for Art In the Open, an initiative and program to support artists and engage the San Antonio River community and our visitors with contemporary art experiences. Hidden Blooms is supported in part by the City of San Antonio Department of Arts & Culture.

Free and open to the pubic.

Daniela Oliver de Portillo is a multidisciplinary artist based in San Antonio, Texas. Her work engages with themes of domestic life, womanhood, family relations, and societal expectations, often through complex processes of cyanotype and ceramic-making. Oliver de Portillo’s work delves into the contradictions of modern female identity, exploring the tension between simplicity and complexity in everyday existence. Through her labor-intensive methods, she reflects on the paradoxes and pressures that shape her experience as a mother, artist, and woman. Her titles, always presented in both English and Spanish, offer a glimpse into her bicultural identity as a Mexican living in the U.S. since 2002, and serve as windows into her personal reflections on the challenges of navigating two cultures.

Oliver de Portillo studied studio art and communications at Trinity University and apprenticed with Mario Pacchioli in Florence, Italy. She has attended workshops at Penland School of Craft, North Carolina and Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Colorado. In addition to her studio practice, Oliver de Portillo has contributed to the art community as an informally trained educator, leading workshops at the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio River Foundation, Contemporary at Blue Star, and El Estudio in San Antonio. Her ten years as Head of Communications and Marketing at the McNay Art Museum provided her with a unique framework for understanding the arts and continues to influence her creative practice.

(Photo credit: Josh Huskin)

Established in 1995, Sala Diaz is an experimental nonprofit venue (501c3) for the creation and presentation of contemporary art. As an exhibition space, residency program and community organization, we promote a down home—and world-renowned—artist-centric model of operation. Sala Diaz is located in the heart of the Cultural Arts District in San Antonio, Texas. www.saladiazart.org/

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