Juan Uslé

Santander, 1954

Juan Uslé lives and works in New York and Santander. He began by studying fine arts at the University of Valencia (1973-1977), where he was introduced to light and Mediterranean painting. In 1980, he received a grant for young artists from the Ministry of Culture and exhibited all across the country, coinciding with a time in Spain that featured a return to painting. This first stage was characterised by a markedly expressionist nature. In the late 1980s, Uslé moved to New York, where his style evolved towards a gestural abstraction predominated by colour and space, a wavy layout, spiralling gestures and multicolour lines or stripes, which highlighted his manner of decomposing colour through the use of washes. Uslé’s work has been exhibited at the Museu d’Art Contemporani in Barcelona (1996), the IVAM in Valencia (1996), Fundação Serralves in Oporto (2000), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid (2003), the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin (2004), the CAC Málaga (2007), Fundación Bancaja in Valencia (2008) and Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern I Contemporani de Palma (2010) among others. He has participated in the São Paulo Biennale (1985), the Documenta of Kassel (1992) and the Venice Biennale (2005) and his work is present in the collections of the MACBA, CAC Málaga, the Tate Collection in London, Saatchi Collection in London and “la Caixa” Col·lecció Testimoni in Barcelona, among others. In 2002, the Spanish Ministry of Culture awarded him with the National Plastic Arts Prize.

E.B.

Works in the collection