Emilio Maldonado
Born in San Pedro de Macorís, Dominican Republic.
Graduated in 2007 with an AAS in Fine Arts and Illustration from Altos de Chavón in the Dominican Republic and in the same year moved to Puerto Rico, where he performed as furniture design and Film/tv production; he also performed as Drawing/Fashion Illustration Faculty at Turabo University.
In 2011 obtained a BFA in Painting from Escuela de Artes Plásticas of Puerto Rico and in 2013 obtained a MFA in Painting from Savannah College of Art and Design.
Maldonado has been the recipient of the Carlos Collazo (EAP) and Gelman Trust Scholarship (SCAD) and has been subject to inclusion on various publications across platforms, including papers, magazines and online journals.
His work has been exhibited in different venues, including the Santo Domingo 23rd Modern Art Museum Biennial (2013), “Santurce es Ley” art festival (2010, 2011), Saint Louis Fashion Week, Philly Fashion week, as well as multiple group and solo shows throughout Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the United States. He has also been a resident artist at Elsewhere Residency in Greensboro, NC (2013) and Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Philadelphia, PA (2020).
Since 2017 he lives and work in Philadelphia, PA.
Statement:
I make art from the point of view of the systemically disenfranchised, making use of the object of consumption as a unit of representation and experiment with its variable semiological interpretations to create pieces that can start conversations that travel between the art sphere and the social realm.
My work is informed by childhood memories, by experiences of struggle, by the search of mental stability and the recognition of social inequality; it is the way in which I can process the circumstances I cannot change. I am interested in exploring elements to the human condition immediately adjacent to me as immediacy fills me with drive and the need to call for others to see, to talk and explore.
In this dynamic it is difficult to describe what is my place, am I the artist? or the act of the piece being created makes me the author “a posteriori”? I work the piece, but never feel like the true creator, as I feel that through the process, it tells me things, some about myself, some about the world, its ironies and conflicts, always poignant, relevant; this is the way that the divine manifests in my life and is often influenced by the force of our collective existence.