09.08 — 10.12.19
Joseriberto Perez is preoccupied with anthropology and its developments within Modern Art and contemporary aesthetics; much of his recent work looks at the decolonialization and reclamation of space. Simultaneously building and excavating forms through printing, drawing and painting, the work is sensual, emotive, metaphorical and occasionally ironic. Perez’s projects are heavily process-based to produce complex layers of found textiles, embedded patterns and hand-made textures. The stratum constructed through his conscious and intuitive decision-making result in scrims of information that invite the viewer to slowly uncover clues to feed a deeper experience with the work. These layers sometimes retain their autonomy; more often they are compressed, camouflaged, and woven together to enmesh spaces that are inviting but challenging to access. Much like the histories we think we know, information about a particular past is always fallible and fluid.
Ultimately, Perez’s project is deeply tied to the transformation of materials through process. His mechanisms for making are both familiar — as we see in his work in painting — and unfamiliar — as in the subtle and expansive installations he creates that suggest new ways to navigate the spaces within his exhibitions. In either case, the work is always visceral and full of the tactile complexity one finds in the most engagingly made things. Perez defines his practice through the resonating ways one experiences a history piled on top of other histories. Whether those intervals are brief or whether they allude to extended generations, the result is always evocative and rich.
Joseriberto Perez received both his BFA (2007) and MFA (2017) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; prior to receiving his MFA Perez was awarded the Cannonball local artist in residency in Miami, FL. His exhibition record is extensive and includes, Sad Men on Bad Afternoons at Tops Galley in Memphis; SFCC at Florida Atlantic University Galleries in Boca Raton; Network of Escape at Tile Blush among many other projects in Miami. In Chicago, he’s shown at Shane Campbell Gallery, The Hyde Park Art Center and the Sullivan Galleries at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has received the South Florida Cultural Consortium Award and several Presidential Scholarships. Perez lives and works in Chicago and currently teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Department of Fibers and Material Studies.
