HOUSTON – September 27, 2025 – Discovery Green Conservancy announced that Chroma Collective, a temporary art installation from Art Lab fellow and Houston-based artist Karen Navarro, will be on view at Discovery Green’s Sarofim Picnic Lawn September 12 through November 2.
Launched in 2024, Discovery Green’s Art Lab is a groundbreaking mentorship program designed to support underrepresented local artists by equipping them with the skills and resources needed to expand their practices into large-scale, interactive outdoor public art. Navarro developed Chroma Collective while in the Art Lab program with mentoring from Brooklyn-based, internationally renowned artist Jen Lewin, Weingarten Art Group, Houston-based design firm MetaLab and Discovery Green Conservancy.
“Discovery Green is a place where our city’s diverse arts, talents and traditions converge,” said Kathryn Lott, president of Discovery Green Conservancy. “Chroma Collective reflects that spirit, inviting parkgoers to see themselves in its mirrored surfaces. Supporting emerging artists like Karen is central to our mission and the purpose of Discovery Green’s Art Lab mentorship program. We are thrilled to be presenting her work at the culmination of Art Lab’s inaugural cycle.”
Chroma Collective is a blend of two-dimensional imagery, three-dimensional sculpture and mirrored surfaces. Inspired by Navarro’s experience as an immigrant of Latin American, European and Indigenous descent, the piece explores the fluidity of identity while reflecting the people and environment around it. Chroma Collective draws from cultural influences, ranging from the colorful Aymara aguayo fabric to Houston’s rodeo traditions and its role as a welcoming home for immigrants. With sweeping curves and an open-ended design, the piece symbolizes progress, unity and the ongoing evolution of community.
Built from a sleek metal frame and UV-printed portraits, Chroma Collective features 31 columns and 93 panels portraying Houstonians and the artist herself whose shifting images reinterpret the cultural mix that defines both the artist and the city. As viewers rotate the panels, the portraits transform while iridescent surfaces mirror their surroundings — turning each encounter into a new layer of the work’s living tapestry. Its flowing, elongated form suggests a shared path, inviting reflection on how diverse voices continually shape and reshape the communities to which we belong.
“Chroma Collective is a mirror, a collective body. It’s playful and bright, but it also holds complexity—it’s about being seen, being counted and being in motion,” Navarro said.
Navarro is a Houston-based artist whose work explores identity, representation, race and belonging through photography, collage and sculpture. Drawing from her migrant experience, Indigenous heritage and the history of colonization, she investigates the complex intersections of history and personal narrative. Originally from Argentina, Navarro has exhibited her work globally.
“Being in Discovery Green’s Art Lab was an incredible experience and Jen Lewin was very generous with what she shared,” she added. “We had the opportunity in New York to sit in one of her regular staff meetings which was very insightful for learning how to manage multiple large-scale projects with a team.”
“Karen Navarro came into Art Lab ready to take the leap from her acclaimed photography practice into the realm of large-scale public art. Chroma Collective reflects that transition beautifully – it is ambitious, interactive, and personal while also mirroring the diversity and energy of Houston itself,” said Lea Weingarten, Principal at Weingarten Art Group. “Art Lab is a pivotal program not only for local artists, empowering them with the tools to expand their practice, but also for Houston in bringing new and original works into the public realm that invite all of us to see our city and each other in new ways.”
Art Lab is co-curated and co-administrated by Weingarten Art Group. It is funded by an anonymous national foundation. More information at www.discoverygreen.com/artlab.
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ABOUT DISCOVERY GREEN®
Discovery Green® is a highly acclaimed 12-acre park in downtown Houston, Texas that is operated by the nonprofit Discovery Green Conservancy. Since opening in April 2008, the park has welcomed more than 20 million visitors. Discovery Green® features sprawling lawns, a one-acre lake, an interactive fountain, a playground, public art installations, gardens and an allée of century-old live oaks. The Discovery Green Conservancy works with hundreds of programming partners to present artistic, musical, educational, family-friendly and health-focused events each year, most of which are presented free to the public. The park also features two on-site restaurants, the award-winning destination restaurant The Grove and the fast-casual The Lake House, providing visitors with an array of dining options. As a nonprofit organization, the Conservancy raises all the funds needed for the programming that Houstonians enjoy. For more information, please visit www.discoverygreen.com. Arts programming is made possible in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.
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