Now On View: Clotilde Jiménez’s Éramos silencios in Chicago

Clotilde Jiménez’s Éramos silencios, on view at Mariane Ibrahim in Chicago through October 31, 2026, brings together painting, collage, drawing and sculpture around family history, memory and the silences that can shape an understanding of identity. The exhibition draws substantially from Jiménez’s maternal family in Puerto Rico, particularly his relationship with a man he grew up knowing as Tío Juan before learning that he was, in fact, his biological grandfather.

That discovery is central to the new body of work, but Jiménez does not treat the exhibition as a straightforward reconstruction of family history. Instead, he works through memory, recurring figures and symbols, building what has become a visual language across his practice. The works move between personal experience and broader questions around ancestry, race, masculinity, sexuality and belonging.

Jiménez first developed a relationship with Tío Juan during visits to Mayagüez, on Puerto Rico’s western coast, in his early adulthood. He learnt the truth about their biological relationship roughly a decade later, after his grandmother revealed that the man he knew as his uncle was his grandfather. That separation between lived experience and family knowledge informs the exhibition's interest in what is remembered, what is withheld and what is eventually revealed.

The orange is one of the recurring motifs in the exhibition. For Jiménez, it carries both personal and historical associations, connecting family memory with Puerto Rico's agricultural landscape and with wider histories of migration and colonial exchange. The fruit appears in different forms throughout the works, gradually becoming a recognizable element within the artist's visual vocabulary.

In China de Mayagüez, an orange tree stands above a child representing Jiménez and Tío Juan, who is depicted wearing the clothing associated with the jíbaro, the traditional Puerto Rican farmer. The two gather oranges into a jute bag, placing the personal story of family discovery within a distinctly Puerto Rican setting. The work also revisits an earlier woodblock print made by Jiménez, connecting his present work with an earlier stage of his practice.

Collage remains an important part of Jiménez's approach. He combines painted surfaces with found imagery and materials, including wallpaper, clothing, magazine clippings and Mexican craft paper, while moving between painting, sculpture, ceramics and drawing. His compositions often bring several references together rather than presenting a single narrative, allowing personal memories and cultural histories to exist alongside one another.

The artist's own background contributes to this layered perspective. Born in Honolulu to an African American father and Puerto Rican mother, Jiménez was raised in Philadelphia, studied in Cleveland and London, and is now based in Mexico City. His work reflects this movement between places and identities while remaining closely connected to his Puerto Rican and African American heritage.

The exhibition continues ideas explored in Jiménez's earlier work, particularly his interest in the body, Blackness and masculinity. His 2020 Chicago exhibition, The Contest considered the figure of his absent father, a boxer and bodybuilder, through imagery connected to sport and physical strength. Éramos silencios turns instead toward another generation of the family, shifting the focus from the absent father to grandparents, ancestry and the stories passed between generations.

Jiménez's use of recurring characters and objects allows these histories to develop gradually. The works do not function as literal family portraits, nor do they attempt to settle every uncertainty surrounding the past. They are constructed from fragments of memory, personal discovery and cultural reference, giving the exhibition a quality closer to an evolving visual memoir.

The title, Éramos silencios, translates as “we were silences,” pointing to the role of things left unsaid within the exhibition. For Jiménez, silence becomes part of the material through which family histories are understood. What is missing from a story can be as influential as what is preserved, and the works give that tension a visual form through repeated images, altered memories and reconstructed relationships.

At Mariane Ibrahim, Éramos silencios extends Jiménez's ongoing exploration of personal and cultural identity without separating the two. Family, place, migration and inheritance remain intertwined, while the combination of collage, painting, drawing and sculpture allows the artist to approach these subjects through different materials and visual registers.

Exhibition: Éramos silencios Artist: Clotilde Jiménez Venue: Mariane Ibrahim Location: Chicago, USA Dates: September 16 – October 31, 2026

Artist website: Clotilde Jiménez