Marc Vitali (WTTW News, 17 April 2025) writes about an exhibition by self-taught Puerto Rican artist Reynaldo Rodríguez, also known as GuarAcibo. GuarAcibo’s solo exhibition, “La mudanza,” is presently on view at the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance (3000 N. Elbridge Avenue, Chicago, Illinois) through November 2025.
Reynaldo Rodriguez depicts his personal odyssey in sculptures made from moving boxes and packages from Amazon. These upcycled containers contain the story of his long road from Puerto Rico to Chicago. “During the pandemic I couldn’t find paint,” Rodriguez told WTTW News. “I started cleaning my storage unit, and said well, the boxes are here. Let me do something with them.”
“I came to live here in Chicago 30 years back,” said Rodriguez, who adopted the nickname “GuarAcibo” (loosely translated as “brave man”) when he discovered another artist with the same name as him.
WTTW News met GuarAcibo at the old firehouse in the Avondale neighborhood, home to the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance (PRAA). The self-taught artist shaped and crafted the discarded cardboard into an exhibition he calls “La Mudanza.”
“What it means in English is ‘the move,’ like moving,” he said. “I used boxes to represent the moving and traveling from Puerto Rico to Florida to New York to Chicago.”
There’s just one painting in the exhibition, but it anchors the story. “This is my journey as an artist together in one painting,” he said. “The baby is my kid — he’s got autism. The heart is, well, I’ve had four heart attacks and survived all of them.”
GuarAcibo is also a muralist and teacher in the PRAA’s Studio Arts program where his soon-to-start spring classes are themed “Recycling for Art.”
Curator Jorge Felix was surprised when he first saw the work. “I’ve known him for some time, and I know him as a painter,” Felix said. “He told me: ‘I’m working on a new series that’s cardboard,’ and I fell in love with the pieces. I saw myself reflected in them.” [. . .]
For full article and more photos, see https://news.wttw.com/2025/04/17/artist-uses-recycled-cardboard-craft-personal-story-perseverance
[Photos above by Marc Vitali / WTTW News: Self-taught artist GuarAcibo shaped and crafted the discarded cardboard into an exhibition he calls “La Mudanza.”]