Juan Carlos Perdiguero

Juan Carlos Perdiguero is a mixed media artist, working with etching ink, asphaltum, and linseed oil on photographic emulsion to create depictions of animal and human figures. He is currently a Professor of Art, specializing in drawing, at the State University of New York at Oswego.  

Perdiguero was born in Madrid, Spain in 1963 and graduated from Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 1986 with his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Conservation and Painting. In 1992, he received his Master of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting from Universidad Complutense de Madrid and State University of New York at Buffalo, respectively. He is expected to receive his Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Universidad Complutense de Madrid in 2021.[1]  

As noted on the artist’s website:

“He has been awarded various grants and fellowships including The SCAC Grant, Artworks! National Residency from CEPA Gallery, the Art Matters Inc. fellowship, the Hangar Barcelona International residency, etc. He has exhibited his work in numerous national and international galleries and museums, including Galeria Metropolitana, Galeria Artificial, Exit Art, The Artist Network, the Burchfield-Penney Art Center and the Albright-Knox Gallery. He has lectured extensively about his creative work nationally and internationally. His work is in numerous public and private collections including those of the Castellani Art Museum, The Burchfield-Penney Art Center and the David Bowie Art collection.[2]”

Exploring the bounds between classic and contemporary, Perdiguero’s figurative renderings manipulate traditional mediums, creating a uniquely personal visualization of the humanistic psychology that inspires his practice. He describes this process and focus in his personal artist statement:

“I am interested on to the study of current ideas in psychology, psychotherapy, spirituality and philosophy that explore the political and socio-cultural conditioning that influences human behavior in contemporary society. The emotional impact of my images communicates a profound and personal psychological response of the time I am living. The representation of animals that I create symbolizes hidden aspects of the modern condition of the human animal, and while reflecting on the animalistic side of our alienated existence, they become psychological manifestations of the inner psyche that transmit profound feelings of solitude and anxiety.

My work is deeply rooted in figuration, coming from the tradition of the Spanish Baroque School. I wish to explore the frontier between the classic and the contemporary by pushing the conceptual and aesthetical sources of this tradition and its historical influence on my art. By using innovative ways of drawing that merge with photography, I create images that are classical in appearance but strongly contemporary in the way they are conceptualized and rendered.[3]”

Perdiguero’s work has received international acclaim, and he has also been regarded as a longtime contributor to the Western New York arts community. In 1992, he created a site-specific installation for the Central Corridor of the Burchfield Art Center at Rockwell Hall, in collaboration with Big Orbit Gallery. The installation consisted of several large-scale black and white paintings and drawings of faces.

“The charcoal images, some nearly ten feet high, are drawn freehand by the artist working from a small xerox image. Two pieced works in the installation utilize a variety of media such as etching inks, oilstick, and other solvents. Perdiguero paints with these liquids which dissolve the toner on dark xeroxed sheets of paper. The work analyzes emotions such as angst, fear, pain, isolation, and sensuality. Perdiguero intends the images to overwhelm and confront viewers as they move through the space.[4]”

In addition to the 1992 installation, Perdiguero’s work has been featured in exhibitions at the Burchfield Penney in 2002, 2006 and 2017. He currently has five pieces in the museum’s collection; two of these works are featured in the exhibition What’s Going On.