About the artist:

Juan Uslé was born in Santander, Spain in 1954. Lives and works between Saro (Cantabria) and New York City. He studied fine art at Escuela Superior de Belles Artes in San Carlos, Valencia from 1973-77. Usle first exhibited in New York in 1989 at the Farideh Cadot Gallery. His paintings have been shown in galleries and museums since 1981. He is represented by Cheim & Read in New York City and Gallery Thomas Schulte in Berlin. Juan Uslé is an American / Spanish painter known for his original use of intense color. Juan Usle explores paint and painting in all its different and possible forms. Always full of contrasts and oppositions, sometimes brutish, sometimes delicate, Uslé’s paintings are infinitely open-ended and continually fascinating. About Juan Uslé’s work, the critic, Dominique Nahas said, "The most evident quality of Uslé’s work is its freshness and spontaneity. Intermixed within each painting’s highly sophisticated format is an utter lack of contrivance. The painter’s work has a dual sense of urgency as well play and forthright elegance that is hard to miss. The light and fluidity that are two of the hallmarks of his work continually bear upon a discursive gridwork, whose pictorially woven components are always shot through with layers of often-ambiguous connections to line and color. The quality of play in Uslé’s paintings is felt through its animated proliferation, its indirection, its fluidity and slippage. It will not be difficult to think of the overlaid/interlaid network lines in each work as referring to social sites of some kind. The relation of sites to other sites seems to inform Uslé’s paintings, if we follow Michel Foucalt’s argument that, in the social matrix, site has been substituted by extension, which had itself replaced the concept of implacement. Our epoch, he claims, is one in which space for us takes the form of relations between sites, between nodal points of connections. Throughout his career Juan Uslé has never stuck adamantly to any one style or subject. He prefers instead to explore paint and painting in all its different and possible forms. The most evident quality of Uslé’s work is its freshness and spontaneity. Intermixed within each paintings highly sophisticated format is an utter lack of contrivance, his work possesses a dual sense of and urgency as well as play and simple elegance. He is influenced by a diverse range of forces: luminosity, movement, the urban world, the cinema, digital images and personal experiences. Always full of contrasts and oppositions, sometimes brutish, sometimes delicate, Uslé’s paintings are infinitely open-ended and continually fascinating. Solo exhibitions 2008 Valencia Bancaja Headquarters, Valencia (4/1–6/30/08) Cheim & Read, New York (2/7–3/15/08) 2007 Juan Uslé. Switch on / Switch off, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Málaga, Spain (9/14-11/25/07) Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin Luz Aislada, Zoom, Santander, Spain 2006 Frith Street Gallery, London, England (3/3/06-4/21/06) En Otros Ojos, Galería Soledad Lorenzo, Madrid (6/22/06-7/15/06) Pieles y Miradas (with Victoria Civera), Galería Siboney, Santander, Spain 2005 Alegre (with Victoria Civera), Tim van Laere Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium, Belgium 2004 Coágulo y Trama, Galería Soledad Lorenzo, Madrid (6/24/06-7/24/06) Open Rooms, Fundación Marcelino Botín, Santander; SMAK, Stedlïjk Museum voor Actuale Kunst, Gante; IMMA, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin 2003 Open Rooms, Palacio de Velaquez, Parque del Retiro, Madrid Spain (10/16/03 - 1/12/04) traveled to: S.M.A.K., Gent, April/May/June 2004, Fundacion Botin Santander Summer 2004; Imma Dublin September/October 2004 New Painting, Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin, Germany 2002 Cheim & Read, New York Saro on paper. Juan Uslé, Van Laere Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium, Belgium (12/5/02-1/18/03) Galerie Guislaine Houssenot, Paris First Time, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany 2001 Llebrana and Gramaland, Galeria Joan Prats, Barcelona Quartos Escuro e Amarello, Museu Serralves/Museu de Arte Contemporanea, Porto, Portugal (5/18-7/8/01) Beauty & Sorrow, Galería Soledad Lorenzo, Madrid Llebrana and Gramaland, Photographs, Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin, Germany (2/9–4/7/01) 2000 Carmen del Negro, Palacio de los Condes de Gabia, Diputacion Provincial de Granada Cultura: Area de Bienestar Social, Granada, Spain (5/5–6/25/00), traveled to Museo de Bellas Artes Ayuntamiento de Santander, Santander, Spain (7/7–9/2000) Noche Abierta, L.A. Louver Gallery, Venice, CA (5/23–7/1/00) Museums and public collections Artium-Museo de Bellas Artes de Álava, Vitoria Autoridad Portuaria, Santander Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga Centre Pompidou, Paris Col-lecció Testimoni, "la Caixa", Barcelona Arte Contemporáneo Fundación "la Caixa", Barcelona Consejería de Cultura, Turismo y Deportes, Gobierno de Cantabria George Eastman House, Rochester Collection Norte, Gobierno de Cantabria Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Ministère de Culture, Paris Foundation AENA. Colección de Arte Contemporàneo Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin MIGROS, Museum für Gegenwatskunst, Zurich Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid Moderna Museet, Stockholm Musèe d'Art Moderne, Luxemburg Museo de Arte Contemporàneo Español, Patio Herreriano, Valladolid Museo de Bellas Artes de Santander Mueso de Torrelaguna, Madrid Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Español Contemporàneo, Badajoz Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao Museum Marugame Hirai, Japan Museu Serralves, Porto Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna Parlamento de Cantabria, Santander Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gante New York Public Library, New York Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart Städtisches Museum Schloß Morsbroich, Leverkusen Tate Modern, London University Art Museum, Long Beach, California Zimmerli Art Museum, New Jersey.