Artist: Luis Maldonado

Born in Brookfield, Wisconsin, Luis Maldonado spent his childhood in Miami. With a father of Puerto Rican descent and an American mother, Maldonado always felt the tug of two cultures, growing up with a strong sense of displacement. "I often felt that I didn't know where I belonged. This feeling was freeing at the same time as being open-ended and confusing," he says.

While always interested in art, Maldonado turned to painting and sculpture in earnest his senior year in high school. He received a BFA in sculpture and painting from Northern Illinois University and an MFA in paintings from SUNY Purchase College.

The artist's rich cultural heritage has forged his desire to map a narrative of his world. For this current series, he has chosen to set this narrative against a backdrop of seasonal changes.

Using a layering system of symbols, geometric color forms and linear design, Maldonado maps the seasons in paint, drawing on generic seasonal symbols--pumpkins for fall, bikini clad women for summer--as well as his own personal ideas and symbols for the seasons. While his mapping technique evokes paintings by Julie Mehretu, he has created his own language and mythology about the passage of time in these vibrant, oftentimes whimsical paintings.

Maldonado's work has been featured at Threewalls, Chicago; Momenta Art, Brooklyn; the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill; DeKalb Gallery, Illinois; Walker's Point Art Center, Milwaukee (fall 2007) and Third Rail, Larchmont, NY (fall 2007). He has participated in three residencies and garnered many grants and fellowships.