Jonathan Carela

Jonathan Carela (1991) is an interdisciplinary artist & filmmaker born and based in the Dominican Republic, his work is primarily on mixed media, painting and video art. Carela received three Associates degrees at Altos de Chavón, the school of design, D. R.: Graphic design (2013), Fine Arts (2014), and Filmmaking (2020); in 2016, he received a scholarship to study filmmaking at CCA California College of the Arts.

His work seeks to reimagine Dominican culture, the human condition and social behavior in the Caribbean, informed by language, images, music, personal and shared experiences in the quotidian Dominican landscapes, with a discursive focus on racial and identity issues of our days.

During the Design Week in Santo Domingo 2023, he was a panelist in Meca Art Fair talks “Ruralizades”, simultaneously showing his work in CODAP (Sto. Dgo.) and Casa Mella Russo (Sto. Dgo.). Recently he was artist in residency at Edge Zones (Miami, FL), where he continued his last body of work. His work has also been shown in: Museo Cándido Bidó, (Bonao, D. R.), Casa Quien Gallery (Sto. Dgo.), JVS Project Art Space (NY, NY), Centro de la Imagen, (Sto. Dgo.) and Centro León (Santiago. D. R.). In 2018 he attended the “Programa de Formación para artistas” workshop by Centro León (Stgo. D. R.) where he received training from various curators and accompaniment, closing with a collective exhibition.



works

  • “My artistic practice serves as a battleground for self discovery through questioning of human behavior and social structures within the Caribbean. I re-imagine spaces and interactions anchored in a discursive exploration of contemporary racial and identity issues.

    Informed by personal and shared experiences in the quotidian Dominican landscapes in both urban and rural, my paintings and films mimic aspects of these landscapes such as: the language, improvisation, the transitory, the informality, the unfinished, the irreverence and the humor.

    Traversing the inherent discomfort of unknownness, impotence, uncertainty, doubt and fear, flipping them upside down in search of emancipation through representations of places for collective joy and celebration or thought provocation.” - Jonathan Carela

  • BAUTIZO DE FULACALETA (2023)

    “BAUTIZO DE FULACALETA” embodies an imaginary place for joy, based on the experiences of a kid being raised in two places full of contradictions; the rural to the urban, the christian joy to the “debauchery” joy. This painting explores the fusion of two opposing worlds and serves as a reflection not only of conflicting ideologies, but the potential for reconciliation.

    Acrylic on canvas

    72”x48”

  • “BAUTIZO DE FULACALETA” Detail

    “BAUTIZO DE FULACALETA”- Detail