Roberto Juarez bio

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roberto juarez

Born in Chicago, Illinois, 1952
Studied at the San Francisco Art Institute (B.F.A., 1977); University of California, Los Angeles (1978-79)
Lives and works in New York

Artist's Statement:
Shortly after my painting show in NYC, at the Robert Miller Gallery, I came to Tamarind to continue my involvement with artwork about transparency and light. The works were developed around the ideas of the new urban high rise and building exterior panel-like forms as subject matter. The lithographs started out traditional enough. I first made the linear structures as rice paper color prints using transparent layers of color blocks, leaving windows or portals for some more intense undercolor to show through. Then, starting with the smallish canvas, I hand painted the vivid undercolor blocks. We made stencils of these patterns and documented the color formulas so the process could be repeated for the whole edition. Then we urethaned the rice paper print onto the painted surface. The fusing of these two layers makes for an interaction of color and line that is a combination of control and chance. I love both things - when they fit and when they don't. The final print paintings continue the commentary I have been making about contemporary building styles and how painting/printing can create surfaces to make art for the walls. Thus a title like, Building Doubling as a Summer Dress. The transparency of color in the printing process lightens up the relationship of the elements of the different layers. This made for some exciting, new "smallish buildings.

Selected recent exhibitions
2002	The Road to Aztlan:Art from a Mythic Homeland, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California (traveled) 1
2001	Roberto Juarez: New Big & Small Paintings, David Floria Gallery, Aspen, Colorado; Roberto Juarez, Robert Miller Gallery, New York, New York Invitational Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York Recent Acquisitions, Bronx Museum, New York; Roberto Juarez and Julio Galan, Richard L. Nelson Gallery & The Fine Arts Collection, University of California, Davis; Botanica: Contemporary Art and the World of Plants, Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota - Duluth (traveled)
2000	Taste and Home Decorating: New Paintings by Roberto Juarez, Sheehan Gallery, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington; Roberto Juarez, Robert Miller Gallery, New York; Roberto Juarez: New Monotypes, Aurobora Press, San Francisco, California
1999	Roberto Juarez: Survey New York - Miami 1987-1999, Frederic Snitzer Gallery, Miami, Florida; Avocado Alchemy, Roberto Juarez: New Paintings, David Floria Gallery, Aspen; Roberto Juarez: Falo Paintings, Galeria Ramis Barquet, Monterrey, Mexico; Wildflowers, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, New York; Expanding Expressions: Contemporary Master Prints, Gallery 210, University of Missouri at St. Louis; Paper View, Plaza Gallery, Fordham University, New York
1997	Rome Paintings, Robert Miller Gallery, New York; American Art Today: The Garden, The Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami
Selected public collections
American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York Denver Art Museum, Colorado J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Kansas City, Missouri The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Miami Art Museum of Dade County, Florida El Museo del Barrio, New York Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Miami, Florida Neuberger Museum of Art, State University of New York, Purchase The Newark Museum, New Jersey The St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri