Museo de Arte de Ponce at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport

Our collaboration with Aerostar Airport Holdings, LLC includes the loan of a selection of works from our collection. These are on display at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, bringing art closer to the thousands of travelers passing through its facilities. The Museo de Arte de Ponce’s internationally recognized collection comprises nearly 5,000 works of European, Puerto Rican, and Latin American art, making it one of the most important art collections in the Caribbean. While our main building remains closed for reconstruction, we continue to share artistic experiences beyond our galleries through collaborations like this one. We thank Aerostar Airport Holdings, LLC for this partnership, which allows us to continue fulfilling our mission of sharing the transformative power of art as we move toward a new chapter in the Museum’s history.

At Gate C, you can view El balcón de Maricao (The Maricao Balcony), a work by Puerto Rican artist María de Mater O’Neill that celebrates the island's natural beauty.

María de Mater O’Neill Becerra (Puerto Rico, n. / b. 1960)
El balcón de Maricao (The Maricao Balcony)
1990
Oil and oil pastel on canvas
96 x 340 in. (243.8 x 863.6 cm)
Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
Gift of Reyes Veray Collection

In El balcón de Maricao (The Maricao Balcony), the artist alludes to the Puerto Rican art world by depicting a house in the town of Maricao, a gathering spot for artists and other prominent figures from the country's artistic scene. This monumental work consists of eight individual stretchers of varying sizes, assembled into a single unit, and is distinguished by its asymmetry, particularly at the top. The work’s format reveals O'Neill's interest in exploring the limits of space. She painted both an interior and an exterior space simultaneously by positioning the viewer on a balcony facing outwards. Additionally, the varying dimensions of the eight stretchers grant the audience different degrees of visibility over the represented area. On the other hand, the large scale of the work offers a rich perspective of the gestural technique that the artist used to create her composition. The brushstrokes that cover the entire pictorial surface evoke her movement while painting.

O'Neill's artistic production spans a range of stylistic trends and thematic concerns. In her compositions, she explores space, landscapes, and materiality through a gestural abstract language. The dynamic nature of her pictorial work was especially pronounced during the 1990s, when the artist reflected deeply on the sometimes-fixed narratives imposed on the production of Caribbean creators; static ideas that have resulted from a repeated discourse about national identity. Consequently, at the end of the millennium, the artist stopped making art for two years and dedicated herself to other forms of cultural work, such as the creation of the cybernetic magazine, El cuarto del Quenepón, which she founded in 1995. During the last few decades, O'Neill’s career has been marked by her teaching and management roles at institutions such as the Universidad de Puerto Rico and the Escuela de Artes Plásticas.