Juan Arango Palacios
Como Ángel en Cielo
September 18th - October 9th. 2021
Como Ángel En Cielo By Juan Arango Palacios Solo Exhibition Details 1, 2021
Juan Arango Palacios, Angelito Azul, Acrylic and rhinestones on canvas, 40 x 48 Inches, 2021
JUAN ARANGO PALACIOS
SOLO EXHIBITION
COMO ÁNGEL EN CIELO
SOLO EXHIBITION (PROJECT GALLERY)
EXHIBITION DATES: 18TH SEPT 2021 to 9 OCTOBER 2021
OPENING RECEPTION: SAT, SEPT 18TH FROM 4:00 - 7:00 PM
GALLERY HOURS: TUES - SAT / 1 PM - 6 PM
NEW IMAGE ART. 7920 SANTA MONICA BLVD. LOS ANGELES. CA. 90046
New Image Art is pleased to present Como Ángel en Cielo (Like An Angel In Heaven), a solo exhibition featuring a vivid body of work by Chicago-based artist Juan Arango Palacios. On view at New Image Art, opening Saturday, September 18, 2021. This is Palacios’ first solo exhibition in Los Angeles and with the gallery.
“A long line has already formed: queer hipsters, club kids, muscle boys in leather. To our left, a huge abandoned factory looms, giant concrete pillars thick as grain silos covered in graffiti, and in a space below, a mass of heaving bodies bathed in red and green light. Glimpses of sparkles shine, a glittery hue of sequins come into focus, tassels adorned cowboy hats sway in the air, gargantuan glamorous heels make way, sweaty chests and sequined cowboy boots saunter in the heat as the concussion blasts reverberate through one’s chest cavity while an intimate group of bodies bask the strobing light, losing themselves to the hypnotic sounds, the more you move, the more you let go, a new world is here. Are you ready?”
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Como Angel en Cielo is a solo exhibition featuring paintings, drawings, and textiles by Chicago-based artist Juan Arango Palacios. The artist’s work is a beacon of glittery openness, representing their own experiences a midst their queer community in Chicago. As a Latinx nonbinary artist Palacios’ commitment to a more accessible and empowered queer utopia is something to be applauded considering the underlying machismo and religious conservatism that is imprinted within the LatinX and American communities. Palacios paints a subversive, unapologetically queer, and bacchanalian nightlife juxtaposed with figures of tattooed, sweaty revelers with sharp acrylics on the dance floor and in the bathroom taking selfies. In a time where we are experiencing an increasing amount of agency unimaginable to former generations, Palacios creates statements of kinship and self-introspection, confronting coded binaries created by the past.
The paintings flaunt narratives and symbols derived from Palacios’ Catholic upbringing in Colombia, Texas, and Louisiana. Angels, demons, and cowboys are archetypal fantasies that the artist mixes with their reality of a queer experience. By painting queer people in times of leisure, sadness, happiness, and love, Palacios is basking in their right to simply exist. Unbothered and unapologetic Palacios is putting their queer community on a pedestal to be glorified, dignified, and to just be themselves like a fish in the water or an angel in the sky.
Referencing their struggle with gender, they turns cowboy boots and flowers into symbols that were imposed as masculine or feminine in Palacios’ upbringing. By using bright monochromatic palettes, Palacios references the blurred memory of an immigrant, a hazy heavenly fantasy, or the lighting of the club dancefloor. They capture the contemporary queer nightlife scene along with their own personal experiences through techno-colored lenses, capturing the renaissance of a queer utopia amidst the anthropocene.
Como Ángel En Cielo Artworks
Como Ángel En Cielo Installations Images
