Residency Artist - Visual Arts

Juan-Si González

169 E. Herman Street
Yellow Springs, OH  45387
Phone: (937) 546-9115
Email: juansilencio@gmail.com

I am a visual artist, and I work in a variety of different mediums, from drawing, photography, and mixed-media installation work to video and performance. My last residency was in Cleveland, working with SPACES gallery and the city hall. There I worked with a number of community groups on a series of pieces about language, migration, and the reasons we move from one place to another. As with all residency work that I've done, I begin with the experiences of those that I'm working with. I am currently preparing for another collaborative project/residency with students at Sinclair Community College. We will be using photography, video, and oral interviews to create stories of how the economic crisis has affected our lives and Dayton more generally. I am most interested in working in community-based residencies, but I would also enjoy working with college-age youth. While one component of any residency may be to familiarize people with different contemporary art forms, my primary objective is to help people see the amazing possibilities that art offers for self-expression and communication. In this pursuit, no media should be underestimated.

In my own work, the idea always dictates the media that I use. Much of my recent work has incorporated photography and found objects in large-scale installation pieces. I also often use sound, text, and video. Much of the themes in my work are social or political in nature. I like to work within the context of a given place where I am exhibiting, creating a dialogue with a place or public. I also often incorporate interactive performance pieces in which I engage with the community, trying to instigate conversation or public dialogue about particular issues or themes.

I began studying art in my native Cuba at age 14 at the National School of Art in Havana. I went on to get a BFA in mural painting and then an MFA in painting and drawing at the Higher Institute of Art, also in Havana. Since 1984, I have worked as a professional artist, exhibiting in museums and galleries in Latin America, Europe, and the United States. I came to the United States in 1993, and have been living in Yellow Springs, Ohio since 2001. Since living in Ohio, I have received two Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council. I have been awarded a number of national prizes in painting and drawing in Cuba and a number of residencies in this country, including at the South Florida Arts Center in Miami Beach, Florida and with the World Artist Residency Program of SPACES gallery in Cleveland, Ohio. My work has been included in national and international collections and featured in a number of publications, including Memoria: Cuban Art of the 20th Century, Art≠Vida: Actions by Artists of the Americas, 1960-2000, and Collectivism after Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination after 1945.