Hanes Visiting Artist Lecture Series: Juan Arango Palacios

“Figure, Narrative, and Image-Making”

121 Hanes Art Center

Juan Arango Palacios was born in Pereira, Colombia, and was raised in a traditional Catholic home. His traditional upbringing was cut short by a series of migrations that his family took seeking a better future. Juan’s family moved from Colombia to southern Louisiana where Juan’s sense of identity and belonging began to be skewed by his lack of knowledge of the English language, his unfamiliarity with American culture, and his internal struggle with a queer identity. Juan graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020 and has a painting, textile-making, and sculpture practice based in Chicago. Emphasizing color and composition, Juan’s work aims to create images and narratives glorifying and fantasizing the idea of safety and joy in a queer experience.

Hanes Visiting Artist Lecture Series 2024-2025: The Rage of Wildness: Radical Futures. This lecture series will highlight artists creating dialogues and radical gestures that envision a future beyond colonial thinking. We will explore practices that operate in a mode of unknowing, decoloniality, resistance to dominant ontologies, disruption of imposed order, engagement with indigeneity, queerness, and ecological perspectives.

An endowment established in 1983 through the generosity of Nancy and Robin Hanes supports the Art Department’s Visiting Artist Series. This important program brings both established and emerging artists to campus to discuss their work in public lectures and to offer individual critiques to our M.F.A. students. The Hanes Visiting Artist series greatly enriches both our academic programs and our outreach to the wider community. All lectures are free and open to the public.

A weeknight or daytime permit is now required after 5:00 pm on weekdays. No permit is required from 5:00 pm Friday through 7:30 am Monday. A $1.00 one-night pass is available in selected lots. More information can be found at the UNC Weeknight Parking website.

Artist website: https://jarangopalacios.com/

Contact: Martín Wannam, mwanna@unc.edu

Image: Juan Arango Palacios, Beso Frente al Alto, 2024, 40 x 48 inches, oil on canvas