Enoc Perez ‘Casitas’

Brand New Gallery is pleased to present “Casitas”, the first solo gallery exhibition by Enoc Perez in Italy.

On view a selection of paintings from Enoc Perez’ Casitas series. These small and intimate oil paintings portray Enoc’s own humble beginnings in Puerto Rico through the depiction of the island’s own vernacular architecture.

He focalizes his attention on his native land with semi-abstract but emotionally evocative Puerto Rican architectures, homelands which immigrants have left behind in order to pursue better lives in the US.

The works conjure emotionally-charged memories that Latino immigrants carry with them as they pursue the American dream.

Named after places in Puerto Rico, these unpretentious paintings combine abstract elements with representation to capture a haunting feeling of Puerto Rico’s distant past and contemporary present. Splattered fields of thick paint and vivid color are combined to create emotionally charged paintings that conjure up the island’s diverse cultural instant.

Born in San Juan in 1967, Enoc Perez first took painting lessons at the age of eight. Son of an art critic, he spent family vacations traveling to museums in different countries and learning about art history. In 1986, Perez moved to New York to study painting at the Pratt Institute before earning his master’s degree at Hunter College. Finding himself at odds with the program at Hunter, where students and faculty criticized his paintings as overly seductive and decorative, Perez maintained his belief in the importance of the aesthetics in art. Embracing art’s potential for pleasure and beauty, Perez paints sensuous nudes, still lifes, tropical resorts, and modern architectural icons in a sleek aesthetic with dazzling, vibrant colors.

Brand New Gallery (press release)