SaveArtSpace is proud to present Looking In, a public art exhibition on billboard ad space in New York, NY, opening September 11, 2026, curated by Jessica Alazraki.

The Looking In selected artist is Enio Arroyo Gomez.

Looking In explores what it means to observe from a distance—through windows, thresholds, memories, cultures, and personal experiences. The exhibition invites artists to consider the spaces between public and private, insider and outsider, visibility and mystery.

Inspired in part by life in New York City, where people live in close proximity and glimpses into a neighbor's world are often unavoidable, the exhibition reflects on the ways looking can create curiosity, empathy, connection, and a sense of shared experience. While some works may reference literal windows, others may explore broader ideas of belonging, identity, community, and human connection.

Presented on billboard ad space in the city, this image transform everyday public space into a moment of reflection, inviting viewers to consider both what is revealed and what remains just beyond view.

Opening September 11, 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 August 24, 2026.

Selected Artist

Location: Steinway St & 23rd Rd, Queens, NY

Enio Arroyo Gomez (b. 1982, Nicoya, Costa Rica) currently lives and works in Colombia. He received his second BA in Scenography and Sculpture from The National University of La Plata in Argentina (2013) and his first BA in Pedagogy from Universidad Internacional de las Américas in Costa Rica (2005). He has performed and exhibited in the USA at The Spring Break Art Show, The Arrival Art Fair with Regular Normal Gallery, On the Fringe Gallery, Spielzeug Gallery and McBride / Dillman Gallery. Internationally exhibited at the National Gallery of Costa Rica, and other galleries in Argentina. Enio’s work is held in the permanent collection of The National Gallery of Costa Rica and Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation. His work has been reviewed in The Brooklyn Rail and Hyperallergic.

Enio uses play to access subconscious impulses and test how images reshape reality. Through drawing as a daily ritual, he constructs a deliberately naïve visual language that resists conventional representation while masking deeper tensions. Working across media, he explores desire, violence, and fear through distorted figures and allegory, where seemingly innocent scenes reveal underlying psychological and moral conflict.

Artist Statment:

My practice is rooted in play as a way of accessing subconscious impulses and drawing the viewer into a game whose rules are not immediately clear. I make automatic drawings daily, letting intuition lead. While my work is figurative, it resists accurate representation. I construct a deliberately childlike visual language, pairing it with carefully researched color palettes drawn from historical images and visual traditions. I use this seemingly naïve language to approach darker aspects of the human experience: desire, pain, violence, oppression, and fear. I am interested in poking at the viewer in subtle, almost incidental ways, letting unease accumulate until it becomes difficult to ignore.

My practice develops through experimentation as I move between drawing, painting, and small-scale sculpture, using conventional, self-made, and found materials. I create in series, and each project becomes an obsession: I find myself reading for hours, spending entire days inside museums, or flipping through endless images. I embed biographical symbols into the work, allowing personal references to accumulate meanings beyond their original context. What first appears as a field of strawberries gradually reveals itself as a scene of violence.

Additional notes from the artist:

Ladrón de Casas (2018), or House Thief, comes from my Bestiario series. The series was inspired by medieval bestiaries, which were collections of tales and descriptions of animals, both real and imaginary. These books, often richly illustrated, explained the symbolic meaning of each creature and became one of the most popular genres of the Middle Ages.

At the same time, I was working on my BROTES series, which consisted of small-format drawings of colorful creatures meant to entertain children and adults alike. Combining the ideas behind Bestiario and BROTES, I began creating my own medieval bestiaries in the BROTES style. I selected a few of these new drawings to turn into larger-format canvases, and this is how Ladrón de Casas was born.

Ladrón de Casas is a self-portrait meant to convey a feeling I have carried throughout my adulthood. I have been on the move since leaving my grandparents’ house in Nicoya, Costa Rica, where I grew up. Constantly having to change dwellings, primarily due to affordability issues, has made me feel like a house thief inside every place I have lived.

The painting deals with a lack of belonging and a sense of alienation, reflecting the experience of more and more people who are forced to migrate and search for new places that never quite feel like home. This issue becomes even more pervasive as fewer and fewer people are able to afford homes of their own in the cities where they grew up, leaving them to feel like house thieves in the very places they inhabit.

Connect with Enio at @enio.ag.

Curator

Jessica Alazraki was born and raised in Mexico City. Since 1998, she’s been based in New York City. Jessica has exhibited her work in seven solo/two person exhibitions in New York and many group exhibitions. In 2018, she received the Award of Excellence from the Huntington Arts Council and an Honorable Mention Award from the Barrett Art Center. In 2019, she participated in the ARTWorks Fellowship at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning (JCAL) and was selected into the Creative Capital NYC “El Taller” in collaboration with the Hemispheric Institute. In 2020, Jessica completed the Trestle Art Space Residency Program, was awarded the New Work Grant by the Queens Art Fund and won the Diane Etienne Founders Award from the Stamford Art Association. In 2021, she was shortlisted for the Hopper Price Award and was a finalist for the Alexander Rutsch Award. She participated in a group exhibit at MoCa Museum in Westport, CT.  Jessica was named the 2021 MvVo AdArt Show winner and The Jackson Painting Prize Emerging Artist Award 2021. In 2022 she got the percent per art program for The Bronx Animal Care Center commission, was selected for Fountainhead Artist Residency in Miami Fl. and participated in a group exhibit at Hudson Valley Moca Museum. And in 2023 was a finalist for the Alexander Rutsch Award and had a solo exhibition at Columbia University in NY. In 2024 she was selected for Anderson Ranch Residency Program in Aspen, Co. and dot-ateliers Residency Program in Accra, Ghana. Her work is featured in several publications including New American Paintings, No. 152, Northeast Issue.

Connect with Jessica at @jessicaalazraki1.

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.