Tony Ortega, Detail. “Dos Beans”. Courtesy of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the artist.
The Boulder, Colorado art scene is vibrant and multicultural. Tres Voces, Un Corazón / Three Voices, One Heart at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art presents the work of three artists whose practices—painting, printmaking, collage, performance, music, and visual storytelling—express distinct perspectives. The exhibit, which opened on May 21, 2026, features the work of the Ortega family–Tony Ortega, his wife Sylvia Montero, and their son, Cipriano Ortega.
Tony Ortega, Sylvia Montero, and Cipriano Ortega. Courtesy of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the artists.
In the museum world, it is rare to see a family of artists in the same show. The Boulder Museum curator noted that in the exhibit, “each voice is unique, yet collectively they form a harmonious whole, reflecting the ways family, heritage, and shared experience shape artistic vision.” Tony Ortega also shared with me in an interview that their Denver home “serves as both studio and incubator, where ideas are exchanged, collaborations take shape, and creativity flows naturally through daily life.”
I interviewed Tony Ortega several times after my recent trip to Boulder and Denver. My wife Harriett had used one of his images of the Virgin of Guadalupe imposed on the Statue of Liberty on the cover of her book, A Bilateral Perspective on Mexico-U.S. Migration. We had plans to see the show, but a family graduation event in Boulder conflicted with his opening ceremony. Tony shared with me stories and images about the Boulder exhibit, allowing me to prepare this story. Tony invites viewers of Tres Voces, Un Corazón to experience the “rhythms, conversations, and creative energies that define a family for whom art is inseparable from life.”
Tony Ortega, “La Marcha de Lupe Liberty.” Courtesy of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the artist.
A 9NEWS Caminos station interview in Denver, Colorado, with Tony and his wife, Sylvia Montero, offers excellent insights into the show’s opening success. Montero discussed the Boulder show and her work as a multimedia artist. She explained that her work included paintings, photography, and printmaking, noting that she sometimes combined them. Montero uses her photography as the main medium for artistic imagery. Once she decides on a certain image, she paints. In her Gaan series, Montero prints on antique sheet music before layering the image of a Gaan (Apache) dancer in the foreground.
Sylvia Montero, “They Came on Ships”. Courtesy of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the artist.
Montero proposed that by bringing the elements of sheet music and Apache dancing together, she affirms “a hybrid identity positioning cultural inheritance and personal affinity as coexisting rather than oppositional.” Her work reflects a belief in art as a site of healing, shaped in part by her background as a former modern dancer. Montero explained that invoking this lineage, “situates Indigenous dance as an enduring influence, carried forward and rearticulated through visual practice.”
Sylvia Montero. [Cuba] Courtesy of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the artist.
The Boulder exhibit features a series of etchings drawn from Sylvia Montero’s 2018 visit to Havana, Cuba. Working from photographs taken with a 35mm camera, Montero focused on the people she encountered, their daily lives, rituals, and family relationships. Montero sent me a note explaining that the resulting images “reflect both the visual intensity of the environment and the intimacy of these interactions.” Through this series, Montero emphasizes lived experience and connection, shaped by moments of exchange, including time, she noted, spent with local families during celebrations such as Mother’s Day. Harriett and I were in Havana, Cuba, a few years before Montero and observed what appeared to be a daily struggle for survival. Montero’s painted photos are a beautiful portrayal of Cuban daily life.
Cipriano Ortega, “Self Portrait.” Courtesy of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the artist.
In a YouTube presentation, Tony Ortega discussed how he currently works with acrylic, not just using paintbrushes but also scrapers and a squeegee to move the paint around the canvas. He explained he may begin the painting “a little bit with acrylic medium to make it more transparent and then paint it on the panels, and then use a squeegee to have the colors run together.” The result is an undercoat, with paint on top, hiding through that layering process.
Courtesy of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the artist.
Tony Ortega’s paintings in the Boulder exhibit are among the best of his luminous career. I looked at his radiant “Tres Geraracions” numerous times, each time seeing something new. I saw in this painting new renderings of green and blue colors, and purple walls with small windows stood out prominently. In this painting, the placement of the grandparents in the foreground and the children with their parents in the background portrays a traditional Latino family arrangement.
Cipriano Ortega, “Cipi at DSA”. Courtesy of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the artist.
Cipriano Ortega’s trajectory, from Denver Public Schools to the Denver School of the Arts and Regis University, illustrates a continuum of artistic and educational formation. His work, like that of many second-generation artists, pushes outward in scale and conceptual reach while remaining bound to the narratives that shaped him. If the mother’s work embodies preservation and care, the son’s introduces reinterpretation and activation, testing how inherited frameworks can evolve within contemporary contexts. Cipriano offers a lens for examining the evolution of Chicano cultural production across generations. Together, these three artists reveal how family-based artistic practices extend outward into institutions, shaping both the creation and interpretation of cultural memory.
Cipriano Ortega’s paintings are in the Ortega family tradition of expressionistic art. The pink and blue colors in his painting “Beautiful Borracho” are the senior Ortega family hues and tone traditions, but the imagery and story are unique to the younger Ortega. A Cipriano self-portrait of a college student outside the Denver School of the Arts has the blue and extraordinary purples of an Ortega heritage painting. However, Cipriano seeks to depict the subjects as they appear, with the facial features accurately represented. In contrast, Tony Ortega’s subjects represent faceless and anonymous individuals. In Cipriano’s painting, “Hope Lives in Bernard,” the colors are bold and radiant and inspired by the senior Ortega’s painting heritage. Yet, once again, in his paintings, Cipriano gives his subject Bernard a gentle face and a personalized identity.
Cipriano Ortega, “Tres Generaciones”. Courtesy of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the artist.
The Boulder Museum curator Maruca Sanchez addressed how the family becomes both artist and steward—simultaneously creating culture and shaping the frameworks through which culture is preserved, interpreted, and transmitted. In the context of Colorado’s Chicano art scene, this perspective reveals not only the depth of individual artistic practices but the collective infrastructures that sustain them, offering a powerful narrative of continuity, transformation, and cultural responsibility.
Cipriano Ortega y Los Lolos band. Courtesy of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and the artist.
Tony and Sylvia explained that the exhibition Tres Voces, Un Corazón “celebrates the interplay of individuality and connection, highlighting how personal expression can coexist with shared purpose.” This exhibition celebrates the interplay between each artist’s individuality and their family’s interrelatedness. The exhibition runs through September 13, 2026.
https://www.bmoca.org/2026/tres-voces-un-corazon-summer-exhibition
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Copyright 2026 by Ricardo Romo. All photo and art credits as indicated above.