Juan Uslé

Juan Uslé, born 1954 in Santander, Spain, has developed a rich painterly oeuvre that operates in the space between pure abstraction and emotionally intense subjective expression. Since the early 1980s he sought to create paintings informed—on a meta-narrative level—by his personal experience, while also reflecting the fundamental rules of his pictorial vocabulary. To date, his most comprehensive series of paintings called Soñé que revelabas (I dreamed that you revealed) distils the poetic-emotional conceptualism that permeates Uslé’s visual universe down to its essence; the structural conditions of painting and the pictorial process. Each brushstroke is both the indexical image of the painterly gesture and the direct physical representation of the artist’s relationship to his work.

Juan Uslé received his training at the Escuela Superior de Belles Artes San Carlos in Valencia. He participated in the 51st Venice Biennale (2005) and exhibited at documenta 9 in Kassel (1992). In 2002, he was awarded Spain’s National Art Prize. His painting and photography has been presented in numerous individual exhibitions in the US and Europe, including Bombas Gens Centre d’ Art, Valencia (2021), Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela (2014), Kunstmuseum Bonn (2014), Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma (2010), Fundación Bancaja, Valencia (2008), Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga (2007), and “la Caixa” Foundation, Barcelona (2006). In autumn 2025, a major retrospective exhibition od his work is planned  at the museum Reina Sofía, Madrid. He was also in numerous group exhibitions including Guggenheim Museo Bilbao (2022/2023), Centro Botín, Santander (2021), Zeit Contemporary Art, New York (2021), Columbus Museum of Art Columbus, Ohio (2019), Musee D´Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg  (2018), Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama (2017), Museo Picasso, Málaga (2016), Fundación Luciano Benetton, Venice (2015), Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid (2013), Moscow Museum (2011), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2010), Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2009), MUDAM Luxemburg (2008). His work is part of various public collections, including Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Museo Reina Sofía, MOMA, Pompidou, “la Caixa” Foundation, MUMOK, MIGROS, Musée d’Art Moderne Luxembourg, SMAK, Tate Modern, Moderna Museet, New York Public Library, Serralves Museum, Museum Morsbroich, Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Marugame Hirai Museum, and Saatchi Collection. Juan Uslé lives and works in New York City and Saro in Cantabria, Spain.

DOWNLOAD CV