Juan Alberto Negroni
THE STUDIO:
Juan Alberto Negroni
“The opacity of those works connects more to the present: the moment in which we exist, live, share, and reflect on both the past and the future.”
My approach to different mediums is always closely connected to water. I tend to work with aqueous mediums—acrylic, ink, watercolor—and in each of them, the water that is introduced is as important as the medium itself. The way the material flows, dissolves, overlaps, and becomes transparent or opaque is fundamental to how I think about the work.
Plants have a very personal origin for me as well. I have often said that when I moved to Dallas, Texas, plants immediately became a symbol as I began to reconsider my memories and my past. Whenever I think back to those memories, the visual background of those scenes was almost always filled with plants.
The symbols in this particular body of work come from my reflections on what has happened in Puerto Rico, both ecologically and socio-politically. If we think about colonization, or about the way communities come together during difficult moments and help one another, the vessel becomes a symbol of sharing what we have with others in times of need. It represents generosity and the idea of offering what is available to us when someone else needs it.
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About Juan Alberto Negroni:
Juan Alberto Negroni, (b. Bayamón PR 1979), possess an MFA in Studio Arts from Southern Methodist University in Dallas TX, an MA Ed in Art History and Museum Studies from Caribbean University PR, and a BFA with a Major in Printmaking from Puerto Rico School of Fine Arts and Design. Counts with several solo projects, like The Defect Effect, Not About Beauty (Religion, Politics and other failures) in San Juan PR, A Midsummers Night’s Dream at 18.2208° N, 66.5901° W, Texas Woman’s University, Denton TX, Pacificaribbean at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art, San Luis Obispo CA and Maneras de Llegar at Sagrado Corazón Univ. Art Gallery in San Juan PR.
Negroni has participated in multiple group shows such as Detroit: A Brooklyn Case Study, SUPERFRONT LA, Los Angeles CA 2010, Dialectic City, curated by Carla Acevedo-Yates, Muestra Nacional de Arts, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan PR 2015 and 2018, Kinds of Monuments, Zattere Cultural Flow Zone, Dorsoduro, Venice IT, 2da Gran Bienal Tropical in Loiza, PR, Home & Visitor at Le Consortium, Dijon FR, Topologies of Excess: A Survey of Contemporary Practices from Puerto Rico (curated by Emma Saperstein and Mariola Rosario), Hail Mary at Liliana Bloch Gallery, Galée Royale and Shiraz Damani and Juan Alberto Negroni at Galerie Rompone, Cologne DE, Garden Party, curated by Danielle Avram, I cast to earth a seed, Galleri Urbane, Dallas TX, among many others.
He is recipient of the Meadows Artistic Scholarship Award 2015 and the 2017 Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'art Dijon Residency Fellowship, Red Bull Micro Grants and The Talley Dunn Equity in the Arts Fellowship. Negroni currently lives and works in Dallas, TX.