BIO
Floating from Colombia, Texas, and now Chicago, Juan creates their own mythologies from narratives they encountered in these places - from cowboys in popular culture to the jungle that remains fond in their childhood memory. When placed in an alien setting like the jungle, cowboys no longer have the macho, confident air but look like tragic heroes and the clash between soccer players become more erotic than violent.
As a queer artist that was raised in a post-colonial context in Colombia, Juan Arango Palacio's identity was shaped in the shadows of North American normativity. Juan's sense of self was further confounded by a series of migrations that their family experienced 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 holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a Chicago-based artist making work that addresses the culture of members of the queer and Latinx diaspora communities in the United States.
