Details:

In his paintings, the artist highlights the experiences of people within queer communities and communities formed by migration and diaspora. Centered on uplifting people and creating images of celebration and resilience, their work seeks to expand language and ways of seeing the world. Drawing from their community, friends, family, queer fashion, and tattoo culture, Arango Palacios examines their experiences growing up in Colombia and later in the United States.
Unframed
Signed

① Artwork:

Barranqueros

In his paintings, the artist highlights the experiences of people within queer communities and communities formed by migration and diaspora. Centered on uplifting people and creating images of celebration and resilience, their work seeks to expand language and ways of seeing the world. Drawing from their community, friends, family, queer fashion, and tattoo culture, Arango Palacios examines their experiences growing up in Colombia and later in the United States.

Raised in a traditional Catholic community in Colombia, Juan Arango Palacios and their family arrived in the American South after multiple migrations, landing in Louisiana, Texas, and Chicago. In synthesizing their experiences through imaginative world-building, Arango Palacios mines the autobiographical and, within it, finds and weaves together folklore, myth, and history.

Specs:

40 inches
48 inches

③ Artist:

Juan Arango Palacios

Juan Arango Palacios’ vibrant narrative paintings depict places and people that highlight both queer identities and other marginalized communities. The artist’s lush works are centered on uplifting the queer experience—while also exploring the artist’s own experience of growing up in a post-colonial context in Colombia and the United States. Arango Palacios’ work builds a vivid and whimsical world of sanctuary and celebration.

Juan Arango Palacios was born in 1997 in Pereira, Colombia, and lives in Chicago, IL. Arango Palacios received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL (2020).

The artist has mounted solo exhibitions at Gaa Gallery in New York, NY (2024); Spinello Projects in Miami, FL (2023); Rusha & Co. Gallery in Los Angeles, CA (2023); Selenas Mountain in Chicago, IL (2023); New Image Art in Los Angeles, CA (2021); and SITE Galleries at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL; among others.

Arango Palacios has been featured in group exhibitions at Gaa Gallery in Provincetown, MA (2023); Hashimoto Contemporary in Los Angeles, CA (2023); Guts Gallery in London, UK (2023); Eve Leibe Gallery in London, UK (2023); Soft Times Gallery in San Francisco, CA (2023); Mother Gallery in Los Angeles, CA (2023); Cambridge Art Association in Cambridge, MA (2022); New Image Art in Los Angeles, CA (2021); Gruin Gallery in Los Angeles, CA (2021); and elsewhere.

Arango Palacios’ work was featured in the 2020/21 viewing program at the Drawing Center in New York City. Arango Palacios has participated in artist residencies at The Macedonia Institute in Chatham, NY (2022); the Bed Stuy Art Residency in Brooklyn, NY (2021); and the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art Residency at Yale University in Norfolk, CT (2019).

The artist received a Chicago Artists Coalition SPARK Grant in Chicago, IL (2020).

Juan Arango Palacios:
Barranqueros, 2024
Oil on canvas
48.0 × 40.0 inches /