YEAR ONE: AROUND THE SUN
Juan Arango Palacios
Pistil
Orange Wine
Middlebrow | 2025, michigan
Juan Arango Palacios was born in Pereira, Colombia in 1997. He was raised in a traditional Catholic home, but this 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. During his studies, Juan was an SAIC Scholar, a Dean's List award recipient, and the recipient of the Excellence in Student Leadership Award in 2020. Juan Participated in the Bed Stuy Art Residency in 2021 where he focused on creating his career-debut solo exhibition featuring large-scale textile pieces, which were exhibited at the Epiphany Center for the Arts in Chicago. Other notable exhibitions include solo presentations at New Image Art Gallery (Los Angeles, 2021), Tala Gallery (Chicago, 2022), Rusha & Co (Los Angeles, 2023), Spinello Projects (Miami, 2023), and Gaa Gallery (New York City, 2024). Juan has also exhibited in group exhibitions at Co-prosperity Sphere (Chicago, 2021), Soft Times Gallery (San Francisco, 2021), The Latinx Project at NYU (New York City, 2022), Eve Leibe Gallery (London, 2022), Guts Gallery (London, 2022), Hashimoto Contemporary (Los Angeles, 2024), Good Mother Gallery (Los Angeles, 2023), and Sargent's Daughter (New York City, 2024). His works are included in private collections around the world, including the collection of Beth Rudin Dewoody at The Bunker in West Palm Beach, FL. Juan was a resident artist at the Yale Norfolk Artist Residency in 2019, and at the Macedonia Institute in 2022. Besides working-away in the studio, you can find Juan putting-in miles on his road bike along Chicago's lake-front, enjoying a charcuterie picnic with friends on a summer day, or dancing the night away at night away at reggaeton night clubs. Placing emphasis on 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.