Emoji's, Lies, Instagram Muses, and Headline News

Emoji's, Lies, Instagram Muses, and Headline News

By Pedro Velez | September, 2017

Pedro Velez's exhibition Emoji's, Lies, Instagram Muses, and Headline News consisted of a series of abstract paintings along with paintings combined with photography dealing with journalism, social media, and the period of sadness, grief, and anxiety brought by the events of the 2016 election cycle. With this exhibit the artist demonstrated that political art can be subtle, personal, and disruptive without being literal, or narrative. Vélez's work adopted a multi-disciplinary approach, incorporating painting, large-scale wall collages, web-based works, and sculpture. Much of his recent work merges his interest in journalism into “visual essays” that comment on a variety of issues, including journalism, politics, and race. His work as an artist and writer has been discussed in the New York Times, Artforum, The Chicago Tribune, Frieze, and The Miami Herald among many other publications. For 10 years Vélez maintained a regular column about the art scenes in San Juan and Chicago for Artnet Magazine and his writing has been published in Newcity, New Art Examiner, and Arte al Día. He was also the controversial editor of the blog El Box Score in San Juan.