Painter & landscape architect in training travels complementary paths

Winning the 2025 Virginia Pennock Scholarship for the Landscape Architect Registration Examination revalidation was a turning point for Yanira Delgado Rivera, center, who is flanked by Victor Blay, left, executive director of the Puerto Rico Architects and Landscape Architects Association (CAAPPR), and CAAPPR President Alexandra Betancourt. (Instagram via 90gradosdigital)

By THE STAR STAFF

Yanira Delgado Rivera has always been creative, drawn since childhood to colors, forms, and the impulse to make things by hand. But it wasn’t until high school -- when she stepped into her first group exhibition -- that she began to feel the pull of two worlds: the precision of design and the expressive freedom of art. What she could not yet imagine was how seamlessly those two impulses would later merge into a single vocation.

Today, Delgado Rivera is a landscape architect in training (arquitecta paisajista en entrenamiento) and painter whose career is steadily gathering momentum. She currently teaches at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) in Carolina, in the Department of Design, while pursuing both her landscape architecture license and an ambitious artistic agenda.

January 2026 marks a milestone: Delgado Rivera will participate in SOMOS, a virtual exhibition presented by the Asociación Puertorriqueña de Artistas Plásticos. She will showcase two works -- one landscape and one centered on the human figure -- though she keeps the titles concealed for now as she continues refining them.

In May, she will contribute to Egotrip, with a new piece exploring themes connected to “the previous child,” a concept she is still developing creatively.

Delgado Rivera’s journey began after graduating from high school, when she entered the Architecture program at UPR. That decision opened doors to experiences that would shape her aesthetics and worldview.

In Italy, traveling as part of her studies, she encountered classical and Renaissance art -- masterpieces that stirred something profound.

“Seeing that art up close inspired me to keep learning to paint,” she says.

Another study trip, this time to Brazil, immersed her in vibrant landscapes and bold expressions of landscape architecture, designed by the late Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx. That trip would anchor her professional trajectory.

She later pursued a master’s degree in landscape architecture at the Universidad Politécnica. After graduating she worked for five years as a landscape architect in a few design offices in Puerto Rico.

Winning the 2025 Virginia Pennock Scholarship for the Landscape Architect Registration Examination revalidation (LARE Reválida) was a turning point. Awarded by the Puerto Rico Architects and Landscape Architects Association (CAAPPR by its initials in Spanish), the scholarship supports candidates pursuing licensure in landscape architecture. For Delgado Rivera, it offered more than financial relief -- it was a confirmation.

The scholarship covers one year of CAAPPR membership, one year of Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards membership, and $500 toward one of the four licensing exams. For Delgado Rivera, it meant momentum and motivation.

“It encouraged me to begin the licensing process,” she says -- an essential step toward validating her professional expertise and expanding her ability to practice independently.

Teaching at UPR Carolina now gives her the structure and space she needs to prepare for the licensing exams, while still carving out time to paint.

Delgado Rivera classifies herself as a figurative painter, but her work is also deeply atmospheric. She is fascinated by skies, sunsets, colors in motion, and the quiet beauty of daily life.

“I’m inspired by the interplay of colors in the sky and the clouds -- by sublime moments in the everyday,” she notes.

Her influences range from the fantastical worlds of Salvador Dalí, whose work she once had the chance to view up close, to the academic yet imaginative approach of French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau, who was known for blending human figures with landscapes softened by touches of fantasy.

Delgado Rivera’s technique is evolving constantly -- something she attributes to both discipline and curiosity.

She envisions a future where she continues teaching, grows her independent landscape architecture practice, and develops her artistic portfolio simultaneously. It’s not a matter of choosing one path over another; for her, the disciplines feed each other.

“Contemplating the work of Yanira Delgado, there is no need for additional explanations,” said John Rivas, who heads the Graphic Design Department at UPR Carolina. “Each work can stand by itself to provoke great admiration.”