"AS WORK 1" BY AMBAR SANTIAGO
Orlando artist Ambar Santiago will make her exhibition debut with Guatemala: My Place of Trees, opening Thursday, September 17, in the SIDE Gallery upstairs at CityArts (Website), located at 37 S. Magnolia Avenue [GMap] in downtown Orlando. The opening reception runs from 6 to 9 p.m., and admission is free.
According to the press release, the exhibition uses bright color and dense layers of overgrown tropical plants to explore Santiago’s experience of growing up in the United States while feeling disconnected from her Central American and Caribbean heritage. Rather than depicting Guatemala as a familiar place, Santiago builds an imagined landscape she describes as a “psychological map shaped by longing and cultural displacement,” using the tropical plant as a recurring symbol for the search for roots, “something that can nurture and protect but also consume.”
Guatemala: My Place of Trees is curated by Juan Pablo Santa Luna, a Hispanic community leader and gallery owner at Mills Gallery in Orlando, where Santiago has worked as a gallery operations assistant since graduating from the University of Central Florida with a fine arts degree in 2025.
