SaveArtSpace is proud to present Home Is Where I Make It, a public art exhibition on billboard ad space in New York, NY, opening July 24, 2026, curated by The Unapologetic Street Series & Amy Quichiz.

The Home Is Where I Make It selected artist is Rosy Cortez.

Home Is Where I Make It explores the various experiences of making homes in places unknown and how those places become core parts of us. So many of us whether immigrants ourselves or children of immigrants have a talent for building new rituals and making anywhere a home. The individual and collective experience of migration is not a monolith, but the overlapping beauties we find along the way are affirming that we share more in common than not when we make homes in new countries. New York City is a powerful example of how many people build coalitions and communities when we seek refuge and solidarity in one another.

Opening July 24, 2026, SaveArtSpace will launch a public art installation for the selected artwork on billboard ad space in New York, NY. The public art will be on view for at least four weeks. Billboard location announced on July 6, 2026.

Selected Artist

Location: 44th St & Astoria Blvd S, Queens, NY

Rosy Cortez is a Chicana fine artist and muralist from Riverside, California. Her artwork explores themes of identity, place and belonging through community storytelling and personal reflections. Her mural practice involves deeply researched spaces and heavy community engagement to instill pride, education, and meaningful interaction. In her studio practice, her oil paintings often feature emotionally charged visual metaphors that highlight cultural narratives. These works often lean into melancholia, depicting quiet, solemn figures within domestic spaces. 

Rosy earned her BFA in Figurative Painting from Cal State Long Beach and worked as a product photographer before taking a leap of faith to pursue painting full-time. Since then, her painting Work Ethic has been acquired by The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, and her mural projects have been supported by Individual Artist Fellowship Grant and the Inland SoCal Creative Corps grant from the California Arts Council.

Rosy established herself as a community arts leader in California's Inland Empire as a core member of the collective Eastside Arthouse, where she became deeply involved in community-based art projects and advocacy for  local artists. She also served as an Arts Commissioner for the City of Moreno Valley. Since then, she has since expanded her practice to Los Angeles, where she currently works as Lead Painter for renowned muralist Judy Baca to aid in the current expansion of the Great Wall of Los Angeles.

Connect with Rosy at @paintedrosy.

Curators

Amy Quichiz is from Jackson Heights, Queens and is a First-Generation Queer Latina. Amy articulates theories and personal experiences into writing pieces that cover various topics such as whiteness, radical self-love from brown girls, mental disabilities in Latinx households, Latinx body issues, borderland identities and radical queer love. Her work has been recognized bys The New York Times, Vogue India, Bon Appetit, i-D, Self Magazine, and VegNews. Through her work, Amy has the opportunity to continue sharing knowledge through radical story-telling and creating workshops for the community.Lastly, Amy Quichiz is the Founder of Veggie Mijas, a women of color collective that highlights the importance of veganism through the lens of those with marginalized identities. Veggie Mijas is an internationally recognized and published Collective.

Connect with Amy at @amyquichiz.

Johanna Toruño is a Salvadoran-born artist and Founder of the Unapologetic Street Series, utilizing the streets as a public platform and gallery. Her bold imagery and statements, often adorned in lush florals, celebrate queer, working class, and immigrant communities. Through her work, Toruño challenges social norms and centers messages of self-reflection and self-acceptance. Using a soft aesthetic with colors that remind her of home, Toruño brings storytelling and a chance for her audience to re-learn and decolonize their own self to accessible spaces. Her political and social messages highlight topics of reimagining norms, and the joy of holding space for collective liberation. Johanna is a TED speaker and Lecturer at Universities like Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, and others. Johanna's work has been featured in The New York Times, Teen Vogue, NPR, Nylon, and more., Johanna lives and works in Los Angeles with her partner Amy and 2 dogs. If she's not wheatpasting she's cooking.

Connect with Johanna at @theunapologeticstreetseries.

SaveArtSpace

Founded in 2015, SaveArtSpace is a non-profit organization that works to create an urban gallery experience, launching exhibitions that address intersectional themes and foster a message of social change that benefits the working class. By placing culture over commercialism, SaveArtSpace aims to empower artists from all walks of life and inspire a new generation of young creatives and activists.