Payasadas
Payasadas
The Guild Room
May 7, 2021 – August 21, 2021
In Payasadas, Juan Arango Palacios presents a new series of large-scale textile drawings that address the artist’s relationship to the Catholic church. These works critique religious archetypes and offer a personification of a queer narrative, exploring themes of fantasy, vulnerability and performativity. As a queer body that was raised in a post-colonial context in Colombia, Arango Palacios’ identity was shaped in the shadows of North American normativity. The artist’s sense of self was further confounded by a series of migrations experienced as their family searched for work and a more prosperous future. Moving through various homophobic and misogynistic cultures in Louisiana and Texas, Arango Palacios formed a disembodied identity that is not attached to any specific homeland and which has always been challenged by the general norm.
Arango Palacios’ practice works towards addressing the lived experiences of ambulant queer identities that have been marginalized within a diasporic or migratory context. Through the fluid and boundless medium of painting and drawing, the artist has been able to represent memories, places, people and archetypes that they associate with the safety, survival and endurance of queer bodies in spaces that challenge their existence.
Juan Arango Palacios is a multi-disciplinary artist who was born in Pereira, Colombia, and was raised in a traditional Catholic home. As a child, the artist moved from Colombia to southern Louisiana, where their sense of identity and belonging began to be skewed by a lack of knowledge of the English language, an unfamiliarity with American culture and an internal struggle with a queer identity. Living in other parts of Louisiana and Texas, and being further subdued by these conservative cultures, Juan continued to live with a constant fear of their own identity throughout their youth. Arango Palacios’ work addresses this fear and its impact on queer identity.
Arango Palacios had a solo exhibition at Musik Curatorial in Dallas, TX, in 2021 and has exhibited in Los Angeles and throughout Chicago. They have been an artist in residence at the Bed Stuy Art Residency in Brooklyn, NY, and at the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art Residency at Yale University. The artist is a recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where they studied painting and fiber art.
Juan Arango Palacios is a multi-disciplinary artist who was born in Pereira, Colombia, and was raised in a traditional Catholic home. As a child, the artist moved from Colombia to southern Louisiana, where their sense of identity and belonging began to be skewed by a lack of knowledge of the English language, an unfamiliarity with American culture and an internal struggle with a queer identity. Living in other parts of Louisiana and Texas, and being further subdued by these conservative cultures, Juan continued to live with a constant fear of their own identity throughout their youth. Arango Palacios’ work addresses this fear and its impact on queer identity.
Arango Palacios had a solo exhibition at Musik Curatorial in Dallas, TX, in 2021 and has exhibited in Los Angeles and throughout Chicago. They have been an artist in residence at the Bed Stuy Art Residency in Brooklyn, NY, and at the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art Residency at Yale University. The artist is a recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where they studied painting and fiber art.
Artworks
