The round oil painting “Apotheosis” explores the relationship between public art and the people who encounter it. The painting depicts visitors reflected in the mirrored underside of Cloud Gate, the sculpture by Anish Kapoor in Chicago. Its curved, reflective surface distorts and merges figures, creating a sense of movement, connection, and shared experience. Based on a photograph I took while living in Chicago, the work reflects the importance of public spaces as sites of encounter and collective memory, a “lieu de mémoire” in the sense described by Pierre Nora. The circular format and color palette draw inspiration from the ceilings of Baroque churches, where illusion, foreshortening, and distortion were used to captivate viewers. In contemporary cities, public art can similarly foster wonder, reflection, belonging, and the creation of new shared visual languages.