Art In the Open: Daniela Oliver de Portillo, Hidden Blooms
Art In the Open: Daniela Oliver de Portillo, Hidden Blooms is an interactive art installation and scavenger hunt along the San Antonio River, featuring 40 hand-built ceramic vases adorned with delicate paper cyanotype flowers. Discover the vases placed near the Mission Reach Art Portals, to experience a moment of beauty, reflection, and connection. Each vase carries a bilingual message—offered in both Spanish and English—celebrating the strength and resilience of modern womanhood. Visitors who find a vase are encouraged to take it home as a keepsake, creating an intimate exchange between artist, community, and environment.
Aligning with the San Antonio River Foundation’s mission, Hidden Blooms fosters inclusivity and public engagement, blending art, nature, and storytelling to transform the River Basin into a space of inspiration and connection.
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.
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.
Art In the Open is a San Antonio River Foundation initiative and program to support artists and engage the San Antonio River community and our visitors with contemporary art experiences. Artists are invited to present projects at Confluence Park that align with San Antonio River Foundation’s mission to enhance the river as a vibrant cultural experience and promote and encourage the conservation, stewardship, and enjoyment of the San Antonio River Basin.