Pablo’s work investigates the vernacular of found letterforms and sign painting from Latin-American neighborhoods in New York City and around the world. Re-contextualizing this visual language from urban landscapes into a personal one serves as a way of reclaiming his own eclectic Latino identity and becomes a departure point for research on cultural and spiritual themes, including Yoruban, Indigenous, and Buddhist forms of devotion. Most of his work is painted on either wood, canvas or paper although a fabric flag made for the historic Wide Awakes procession in 2020, is a new medium of exploration which has led to his most recent series of fabric banners, each one celebrating a different Yoruban Orisha.
BIOGRAPHY
Pablo A. Medina is a Cuban-Colombian artist whose work combines folkloric letterforms with spiritual and ancestral themes. In 2018, the Latin America Contemporary Fine Art Competition (Chelsea, NY) awarded him an exhibition space in Miami’s Spectrum Art Fair during Art Basel. In 1999, He was the youngest exhibitor in the Design Triennial exhibition at the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Museum. He has been a contributing artist for a series of fundraising exhibitions that have collectively raised over $15,000 for non-profit organizations including ACLU, The Standing Rock Council, Make the Road NY and City Harvest. On October 3, 2020, he marched along with hundreds of other artist activists in the historic Wide Awakes procession, protesting police violence, encouraging voting and manifesting Black joy. He has taught art and design at Parsons School of Design, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and at California College of the Arts (CCA). He paints in his studio in Sunset Park Brooklyn. For inquiries, send an email to pablo4medina [at] gmail [dot] com.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
New York Latin-American Triennial, Longwood Art Gallery, Hostos Community College , 2022-23.
Museum of Graffiti, Miami, FL, 2021. We are all connected, a fundraiser for the Cuban artist movement Movimiento San Isidro.