Paul Amundarain

Paul Amundarain (b. 1985, Caracas) began his artistic journey in Venezuela, where he studied architecture at the Central University of Venezuela. In 2013 he set up his studio in Miami, Florida. He has presented his work in solo and group exhibitions in prominent galleries and institutions in Venezuela and the United States, and several of his works are part of renowned art collections or have been integrated into architectural spaces.

His work brings together contrasting situations, both sensitive and conceptual: the factual and the illusory, utopia and ruin. To create this atmosphere he juxtaposes different types of images (pictorial, photographic, silkscreen), objects (stones, meshes, barriers, boxes, blocks) and reflective surfaces, proposing a tensioned synthesis of past and present facing an uncertain future rooted in the traumas and collisions of Modernity.

Amundarain belongs to a generation that received the legacy of the grid – a form that allowed modernity to be structured – already deconstructed. His research tries to solve problems in social aspects, the development of man in the city and his work as a record of his own experiences using technological processes that characterizes him.

The grid that previous generations reinserted in the skin of the cities through urban interventions, is multiplied in his graphic base paintings assuming it has multiple meanings: grid, fence, grating overlapping visual signals on his own experience of mobility.

However when he quotes a kinetic-like Carlos Cruz-Diez and evokes his physichromies, he inserts disturbing social images in a gesture which reminds us that we are in turbulent times and that the dream deposited in the perceptual participation has "failed", as the same adjective he uses as a title for one of his paintings associated with the grid.

Works such as Broken grid, but also as Memory -in which his face appears behind a mesh of interwoven grids- superimpose two aspects of the failed promises of modernity in various places in Latin America and Venezuela: political and socio-economic instability and consequent massive emigration.

As a newcomer to the United States, his work contains a biographical and aesthetic record of the pursuit of paradise that is often fulfilled in enclosed horizons. At the same time, he has learned the lessons of survival that in depressed neighborhoods make it possible to manufacture necessary objects with materials discarded by other social sectors. Trash is recycled as art.

Multiple Realities — The Multiple Realities series seeks to address man’s relative position in his surroundings from a material and conceptual perspective within preexisting, existing and future dimensions.

Through abstract forms the artist attempts to engage the human psyche and explore the relationship between man space and perspective. The stratified layers in the paintings intend to visually immerse the viewers in exploring different human perspectives, creating random associations with an individual reality.

The artist explores modernist aesthetics in a symbolic way while bringing these visual references to his work, attempting to generate connections with contemporary artistic production, as an act of personal reflection. Oil, acrylic and various pigments are mixed with industrial techniques of mass production to animate this series of paintings, which tells the story of a great legacy, but which also contemplates and connects to the future with great uncertainty.

Studies

2008 — Silkscreen workshop, Museo de la Estampa y el Diseño Carlos Cruz-Diez, Caracas. 2006 — Workshop “From the Idea to the Material”, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas. 2005–2010 — Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas. 2005–2007 — “Design with 3D Tools”, ARTS Institute of Computer Graphics, Caracas. 2002–2003 — Workshop “Analysis and Plastic Research”, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas.

Solo exhibitions

2025 — “Los sueños no se borran” (Dreams Are Not Erased). Centro Cultural de Arte Moderno, Caracas. 2024 — “Entropy”. Opera Gallery, Miami. 2022 — “Pintur(A)política”. Curated by Félix Suazo. Cerquone Gallery, Caracas. 2021 — “Jungle Man”. Curated by Jordi Pallarès. Cerquone Gallery, Madrid. 2020 — Solo Project “Multiple Realities”, Pinta Miami Live, Cerquone Gallery. “Multiple Realities Vol. 2”, Blackship Gallery, Miami. “Multiple Realities”, Paul Amundarain Studio, Miami. 2019 — “Abajo cadenas” (Down with Chains). Curated by Lorena González Inneco. La Caja, Centro Cultural Chacao, Caracas. “Multiple Realities”, Dam Gallery, Miami. 2018 — “Tropical Gardens”, Art Nouveau Gallery, Miami. “Tu amor es un periódico de ayer” (Your Love Is Yesterday’s Newspaper), Sala 3, Cerquone Gallery, Caracas. 2017 — “Símbolos rotos” (Broken Symbols). Cerquone Gallery, Caracas. 2016 — “White On”, Alfa Gallery, Miami. “Sueños de modernidad”, curated by Gerardo Zavarce, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Zulia (MACZUL), Maracaibo. “Pursuit of Paradise”, curated by Adriana Herrera, Ideo Box Art Space, Miami. 2015 — “Dreams of Modernity”. Biscayne Art House, Miami. 2014 — “City Skins”. Art Nouveau Gallery, Miami. 2013 — “Pieles, pintura y escultura” (Skins, Painting and Sculpture). Galería Parénthesis, Centro de Arte Los Galpones, Caracas. 2012 — Galería Viloria Blanco, Maracaibo. “Anarquía conceptual”, Platabanda, Caracas. 2011 — “Esto no es una individual”. Platabanda, Caracas. 2010 — Galería Viloria Blanco, Maracaibo.

Murals

2025 — Multiple Realities “Brisa”. Private residence, Mexico City. 2024 — “Multiple Realities”. Torre Digitel, Caracas. Multiple Realities “Formas”. Modo Restaurant, Caracas. 2022 — Multiple Realities “Progress”. The Elser, Miami. “Miami Sky”. Dorsey, Wynwood, Miami. 2019–2022 — “City Skin”. Avalon, Merrick Park, Miami. 2018 — “Multiple Realities”. SLS Lux, Brickell, Miami. “Dancing Shapes” (Multiple Realities). Park Grove, Coconut Grove, Miami.

Group exhibitions

2020 — “Correspondencias”. Cerquone Gallery, Caracas. 2019 — “Chapa y pintura”. Cerquone Gallery, Madrid. 2018 — “Cuatro cuartos #01” and “Abstracto hoy”. Cerquone Gallery, Caracas. 2017 — “Fresco Colectiva 1”. Cerquone Gallery, Caracas. 2016 — “Caos sustentable”. Galería Universitaria, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas. 2013 — Art Miami, Art Nouveau Gallery, Miami. Feria Iberoamericana de Arte (FIA), Galería Viloria Blanco, Caracas. 2012 — FIA, Galería Viloria Blanco, Caracas. 66th Salón Arturo Michelena, Valencia. “El legado cinético”, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Caracas. 2011 — “Hacia el plano verde”, Centro de Artes Integradas, Caracas. Arte Americas Miami, Irreversible Maq Project, Miami. Espacio MAD, Centro de Arte Los Galpones, Caracas. FIAAM and FIA, Galería Viloria Blanco. 2010 — Galería Viloria Blanco, Maracaibo. “Eclepto”, Galería G7, Los Galpones, Caracas. “2+3”, Centro de Artes Integradas, Caracas. “Retomando el rojo”, Estudio 68, Caracas. FIA and FIAAM, Galería Viloria Blanco. 2009 — Auction “Artists for a Green America”, Common Ground for Conservation, Miami. FIAAM, Galería Viloria Blanco, Maracaibo. FIA, Galería Altamira, Caracas. “306 Pequeño Formato”, Galería Viloria Blanco, Maracaibo. “Fragmentos de la urbe al movimiento”, Centro de Artes Integradas, Caracas. 2008 — Galería Viloria Blanco, Maracaibo. Centro de Arte Daniel Suárez, Caracas. FAVOR, Puerto Ordaz. FIAAM, Maracaibo. 64th Salón Arturo Michelena, Valencia. Salón de Arte DIVENSA, Caracas.

Sources: Paul Amundarain, Recent Works (catalogue); Paul Amundarain — In Progress (monograph, ed. Félix Suazo).