After exploring the art history and the modern art world, I have arrived to several conclusions that I would like to share with the art lovers. Now with globalization and the internet, art history is not focus any more in one geographical point like Athens, Florence or Paris. The modern painter has to do a big effort, so the people around the world know him. Modern Collectors and gallerists have opened their taste to a completely big variety in visual arts and forms, artists in reaction want to create something that humanity has never seen, get famous and rich and keep and be trapped by the same style until the last day of his artistic death. This means the artistic suicide and lost of the artistic soul in exchange for commercial and fashions succeed. Artist from this time is trapped also for the resume industry, we have to put something in our resume studies and exhibitions and keep in fashion with the modern art museums for gain recognition if not being treated as the romantic artist and be ignored while he is alive, just for to be taken several generations after his death.

The modern art history has alienated the artist until carry him to be a professional as a plumber, artisan or goldsmith and off course all this alienation start from the academy where they have to pay big sums of money.

Born: 1967, in Pereira (Risaralda) Colombia, South America
Lives and works in Miami, Florida, The United States of America

This is some description of my artistic career:

1975 – 1987 La Dorada (Caldas) Colombia, South America
Self-taught, I did some drawings in pencil, paintings in aquarelle; I also painted in wood and silhouettes in the walls of our home, sketches, etc. My aunt Miriam Arango who also is a painter influenced me more at that time, she saw some of my works, and started to encourage me to develop my talent and also gave me some brushes, oil paintings, and a canvas in which 20 years after I did my first oil on Canvas, a self portrait and that happened just because I met another painter who borrowed me some materials. Unfortunately from my childhood any artwork survives because at that time nobody cares about to conserve it.

1987 – 1994 Bogotá D.C., Colombia, South America
Thanks again to the influence of my aunt I started my collection of portraits in pencil because at that time I was more interesting in the human features than any thing else. This is a gallery of maybe 10 pieces that still survive in La Dorada (Caldas) because I could buy a small apartment to keep it and off course I still have to pay some body to take care for it.

1994 – 1998 Bogotá, D.C. Colombia, South America
In 1994 I met my master Luis Barrera in his studio at “The association of Bolivarian Artists” in which he was the director and I asked him if my gallery of portraits in pencil was art, and he answered me that art can be a line, but was necessary for my artistic career to climb to color, so he started to trained me as a painter. Later in December 1995 while I was visiting La Dorada I did my first mural. When I was 30 years old, in March of 1998 I did my first oil on canvas that is a self-portrait and in November of the same year I did my second mural for the school in which I finished the high school. Unfortunately none of those murals survive. I also burnt a bunch of studios I did with my master Lubar and also all the notes books until I finished the high school.

1999 Houston, Texas, The United States
I traveled to The United States as an immigrant and located in Houston, Texas.

2001 – 2003 Houston, Texas, The United States
At the beginning of 2001 I bought my first oil painting tubes and started to build my studio home. I completed my first gallery of about seven oil paintings and started to worry about to sale my art and to promote myself.

2004 Houston, Texas, The United States
I participated in the first art show at the Mexico Consulate in Houston, Texas, and since that I have submitted entries to them. I opened and studio in Downtown Houston from which I did a painting, but this studio just lasted one year.

2005 - 2006 Houston, Texas, The United States
I registered as a member of “The Visual Art Alliance” in Houston, Texas. I pay some body to do my website www.juceva.com and produced several canvases. I was asked to release some of my paintings to a doctor’s office in Pearland, Texas, which are still there. I sold my first painting called “Brake Table Landscape”. At the end of 2006 I showed for several months at Martha’s Gallery and Antiques from which I did a painting called “Martha’s Gallery” which is in La Dorada (Caldas) now.

2007 Houston, Texas, The United States
I did my first commission for a lady who asked me to write a statement from the bible. I released a painting called “Galveston Bay” for the City of Houston Hall Annex Exhibit, which was there until march of this year 2009 when I brought it back home after two years because they didn’t want to accept it as a donation, so it belongs to Colombia. I started to release some paintings to Gallery Mado Chalvet in Houston which I exchange once in a while and at this moment Ms Susan who is the owner still have several in display. I participated for the first time in “The art of the Avenue Show” at Winter Street Studios in Houston, Texas, and I had participated every year.

2008 - 2009 Houston, Texas, The United States
I did a very informal solo show to my coworkers of the company I was working for. I moved a bunch of paintings from my studio here in Houston to La Dorada, for starting my promotion campaign in Colombia. I participated for the first and only time at the San Jose Clinic Show in Down Town Houston, Texas. I was commissioned for to do a restoration for a family portrait. I released three paintings in a restaurant called Lucio’s. I started to teach art classes to young people and my own artistic movement with them. I also did a mural with them for the city of Houston, Harris County.

2010 Miami, Florida, The United States
I wanted to refresh myself and restarted, so in December 2009 I moved to Miami and then to La Dorada where I did a serie of landscapes of the town surroundings, my dad’s portrait and my mom’s portrait, I also built a gallery of about 30 oil on canvases and sketches. Later in may I came back to Miami where now I am resetting my studio and gallery and started to paint landscapes of the city area and some abstracts views. I unframed 40 paintings that I am going to move to La Dorada this year. The goal right now is to keep my promoting campaign here in the U.S. and in Colombia. I opened a page on facebook as Juceva Arango and started to redesign my bilingual website www.juceva.com .

I am completely self-taught my education and learning comes directly from my experience in the art world. I visit galleries, studios, museums and art shows. I go to the library to study art history and techniques; I read books, magazines, search in the Internet and dialog with other painters and sculptures.

- I certify that everything I wrote here is true full in the best of my knowledge and understanding and you are invite to visit my studio in Miami for any enquires you have. Thanks, bye.

Since I was a kid my dream was always to paint as realistic as the old masters. Later on I learned that I didn’t need to be as photographic for to be a fine artist. Now I know that art concepts change with the time and the culture we coexist and also within us in our evolution.

I like to produce figurative art, I don’t expect at all that it looks as a photo image, but that shows my humanity and the essence of the subject matter, both and generate my unique style. I express nature throughout my human realities and in that moment I become subjective, abstract and surrealistic or any other way of expressionism.

I create forms and put colors on them, who can deny the influence that color has in our lives. I have an infinite freedom for inspiration, nothing stop me for to do a motif once is catch it by my consciousness nothing and at the same time that makes me free above any worldly prejudice if I can express what I feel.

Truly yours,
Juceva

This picture was taken when I was doing the studio for "Palm Trees by Montrose and Westheimer", in those days of july 2007 I was without a job and worried and the economic desesperation obligate me quit painting, I could start the painting, but was unfinished until december 31st when I finished it.