Verbena

Sol Calero’s colorful, site-specific environments blend an expanded painting practice with the vernacular architecture and cultural codes of Latin America and its diaspora. Her immersive, participatory installations have often taken the form of small businesses such as a hair salon, currency exchange booth, salsa dance school, travel agency, or restaurant, questioning aesthetic hierarchies and problematizing the perception of the exotic while engaging with local contexts. Combining materials and mediums—including furniture, textiles, mosaic, video, mural painting, and functional found objects—her projects delve into the illusion of the Caribbean as a paradise, disarming the viewer with a convivial, playful atmosphere while utilizing a transversal visual language to unfold conversations around migration, displacement, and identity.