I remember walking into the Mexico pavilion when I was a little girl and being totally mesmerized. I had no sense of the ceiling, and the air seemed like it was moving with a soft breeze. It felt like an open-air marketplace.
These days I'm more aware of the reality of it. I can see the ceiling. I'm aware of the illusion. But I can still remember how it used to feel and I'm still mesmerized by the memory. I look at my kids and I hope they're seeing it through those eyes. It's funny how that feeling stays with us even when we get old enough to see through it. I know the interior of the Mexico pavilion is a massive indoor space, but I still fully appreciate the effect it had on me when I was a little girl.
I've wanted to capture that forever, but truth told photographs alone don't do it justice. What we see and feel in that space, especially with the benefit of the memory of our younger selves, is so different from what we see with an adult naked eye. And so I made this—a photograph that I took inside the space of the temple view and iconic volcano in the distance from the San Angel Inn Restaurante, but rendered into a painting. Somehow I think this version of it captures the experience inside more than any literal photograph could.
Taken with a priority on gathering light—35mm, 1/20 second, f/2.0, ISO 1600, edited in Lightroom, and then turned into a rough oil painting.