Muralist tears down the walls

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For years, Hector Duarte has been an important part of the art scene in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, but he never has had a solo exhibition at the National Museum of Mexican Art.

And there's good reason: It's impossible to gather Duarte's work into one confined space. The 57-year-old mural artist creates massive works on and in buildings both in Pilsen and elsewhere in Chicago, a city with a long, proud history of mural art.

 Artists interested in participating in the Caurio mural project can look up instructions at here.

But now the neighborhood museum has found a way to feature the artist and his work. Through May 9, Duarte is working on "Destejiendo Fronteras/Unweaving Walls," a 150-foot mural on canvas at the museum, where patrons can observe his technique and talk to the artist. The finished piece will be on display through June 28.

"Hector has taken the idea of mural paintings and adapted it into the 21st century," said Cesareo Moreno, the museum's visual arts director. "His themes address globalism and its effect on people."

On a recent afternoon, Duarte, a trim man with salt-and-pepper hair and a welcoming smile, stood on a platform adding layers of color to his massive mural that covers four walls in one of the museum's galleries. He says he's been working on the piece since November and now is filling in the bigger details.

The mural is full of striking, powerful images that address issues of immigration, borders and identity. It begins with a broken fence (think the U.S.-Mexico border), over which flies a horde of butterflies, a recurring image in Duarte's work.

"I wanted to humanize the border," Duarte explained. "The butterflies represent the people who come and go across the border."

The center two segments hold images of barbed wire broken and wrapped around an anatomical heart that morphs into DNA and Duarte's self-portrait built around a fingerprint. The final image of a young woman flying with a child between the borders represents "hope, the future and the unravelling of the frontier," Duarte said.

Duarte, of course, follows in the footsteps of the great Mexican muralists — David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco and Rufino Tamayo — who first perfected the style in the 1930s.

Duarte grew up in Michoacan, Mexico, and studied mural painting at Siqueiros' workshop in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City.

"I decided to take a chance and study there. It was a good decision and very inspiring."

Since moving to Chicago in 1985, he has participated in the creation of more than 45 murals, including "Ice Cream Dream," a glass-tile mosaic at the Western Avenue CTA Pink Line station; "Awakening of the Americas" in the Rafael Cintron Ortiz Center on the UIC campus; and the 430-foot "Loteria" at 42nd Street and Ashland Avenue, the largest mural in Chicago.

The title "muralist" is not all that popular with artists today, according to Moreno.

"It's almost like they are embarrassed by the title," he said. "It has this stigma that you are not professional, that you are a community artist."

But Duarte is just the opposite.

"I enjoy the connection with people," he said. "They have their own interesting histories, and I can reflect some of those ideas in my murals."

Duarte recently spent several years in Caurio, his hometown. He says it was a chance for his three children to connect with their Mexican heritage but also a chance for him to give something back to the small, rural town. While there, he painted a beautiful mural for the town that speaks to the analogy between the monarch butterflies of central Mexico and those people who quietly go back and forth across the border looking for work. Residents were shocked that he would want to spend time painting the mural in their main plaza.

Duarte also commissioned artists from Mexico and the United States to contribute a butterfly to the mural project. More than 600 butterflies have been received. He adheres the butterflies to the adobe walls of homes throughout the town as an extension of the larger mural. Big or small, they are all quite beautiful, in Moreno's view.

"It's a phenomenal idea," Moreno said. "All these artist-created butterflies migrate there and become part of the permanent identity of the town. Hector brings these same ideas of border, migration and the transformation of people into his current mural."