Juan Arango Palacios‘ La Eskarlet is currently on view in Vernacular Glamour.
Vernacular Glamour brings together a cross-section of contemporary Latinx artists working with the visual vocabularies of camp, popular culture, high fashion, and baroque painting and architecture through vernacular idioms. Engaging the materials and forms of ball culture, advertising media, spiritual practices, and street art, the eight artists in Vernacular Glamour mobilize the artifice and exuberance of glamour to address the complexities of everyday life.
As a queer artist who was raised in a post-colonial context in Colombia, Juan Arango Palacios‘ identity was shaped in the shadows of North American normativity. Their sense of self was further confounded by a series of migrations that my family experience in search of work and a more prosperous future. Moving through varying homophobic and misogynistic cultures in Louisiana and Texas, they have formed a disembodied identity that is not attached to any specific homeland and has always been challenged by the general norm.
Juan’s 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 paint, they have 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. Also, through the process of weaving, they are producing narrative objects that aim at expressing the stories of individuals within a similar context. Placing emphasis on color and composition, their work aims at creating images glorifying and fantasizing the idea of safety in a queer experience.
Juan Arango Palacios’ La Eskarlet can be viewed in Vernacular Glamour at the Kathryn Schultz Gallery until February 19, 2022. For more information, click here.
Juan Arango Palacios | Vernacular Glamour Exhibiting Artist
Juan Arango Palacios was born in Pereira, Colombia, and was raised in a traditional Catholic home. Their traditional upbringing was cut short by a series of migrations that their family took seeking a better future. The family moved from Colombia to southern Louisiana where Juan’s sense of identity and belonging began to be skewed by their lack of knowledge of the English language, their unfamiliarity with American culture, and their internal struggle with a queer identity. Living in other parts of Louisiana and Texas, and being further subdued by the conservative culture in which they lived, Juan continued to live with a constant fear of their own identity throughout their youth. Juan currently studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has found a safe-haven within the queer community in Chicago.
See more from Juan Arango Palacios
Instagram: @juuuanitx
Website: www.jarangopalacios.com