Artist Biography:

Julio, born in Guatemala in 1977, moved to California in 1986 before establishing himself on the East Coast of the US. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Art from Laguna College of Art and Design in 2004, specializing in drawing, painting, and sculpture. Julio's art has been exhibited in galleries across NJ, NY, and PA after he relocated to Jersey City in 2005.

In 2009, he completed his Master of Fine Arts at the New York Academy of Art, specializing in figurative art, and worked as an assistant anatomical art instructor there. After moving to Pennsylvania in 2010, Julio ventured into entrepreneurship while refining his artistic practice. In 2013, he began a full-time teaching position at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, MA where he is tenured and served as department Chair from 2020 to 2023. In 2017 began teaching at Rhode Island School of Design as Visiting Critic, currently continues to share his expertise in the arts at both institutions.

Artist Statement:

I am a project-based painter, my work in essence deals with identity, vulnerability, confusion, and acceptance. Within my work, I explore the nuances of existence in liminal spaces—those in-between realms where dichotomies intersect and blend.

My figures embody a paradoxical duality, simultaneously empowered and fragile, exuding both vigor and profound confusion. Purposefully intertwining contradictions within my compositions, I hope to disrupt conventional meanings and symbols. These deliberate contradictions serve to mirror the complexity of human experience.

The choice of medium across my series mirrors the diverse chemical makeup and yet inherent similarities present in external projections. This deliberate variation in mediums accentuates the multifaceted nature of identity and the myriad ways it manifests.

Ultimately, my aspiration is for the viewer to encounter themselves within these contradictions. I seek to provoke introspection, to question our own belief systems and perceptions of self through my paradoxical portrayals.