Carlos Rolón
Known for his multi-disciplinary practice whose work employs a wide range of media to explore themes of craft, ritual, beauty, spirituality, identity and its relationship to art history and the institution.
Born to a Puerto-Rican family, Rolón’s background allows the artist to explore personal ideas which directly deal with questions of inclusion, aspiration and cultural identity.
Often connecting childhood memories, the artist bore witness to the ways in which households have adapted to new American middle-class lifestyles with homes, walls and furniture adorned with ephemera of color, texture, patterns and items brought into the home to create a sense of longing. It is from here Rolón takes inspiration and transforms these vantage points producing a hybrid language of exuberant flora paintings, sculpture, social practice and site-specific installations composed of diverse materials that offer opportunities for self-reflection, rich symbolism and community engagement, bridging the divide between public and private.
Rolón explores how cultivated settings and social barriers operate and its relationship to postcolonial spaces. The work is at once melancholic, excessive and exuberant, poised somewhere between celebration and regret. Inviting the viewer to engage in discourse and discussion.
Rolón has had solo exhibitions at The Dallas Contemporary, Dallas; Bass Museum of Art, Miami; Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK; Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Museo de Arte de Ponce, San Juan, Puerto Rico; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA and CAM Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis. His work has also been exhibited in group shows at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Marta Herford Museum, Herford, Germany; Museum Het Domein, Sittard, The Netherlands; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Museo del Barrio, New York and Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno (CAAM), Canary Islands; Oakland University Art Gallery, Michigan and Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico.
In 2007 Rolón represented Ukraine in the 52nd Venice Biennale. He is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation award for Painting and Sculpture. Rolón’s work is included in the following public collections: Bass Museum of Art, Miami; Brooklyn Museum, New York; City of Chicago Public Art Collection; Deagu Art Museum, Deagu; Museo del Barrio, New York; Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico; Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan; Museum Het Domein, Sittard, The Netherlands; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; New Orleans Museum of Art and Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev, Ukraine, among others.
