Christian Curiel is from Puerto Rico, he grew up and worked in Miami before settling in New York. Essentially expressing himself through painting and drawing, Curiel’s work addresses childhood and adolescence. Generally expressed with large-scale canvases, the artist creates extremely careful compositions in which childhood is questioned, interrogated. Realist compositions, an ensemble of situations making reference to dreams and often to nightmares, the paintings are full of mystery and interrogation but are also very linked to his Cuban culture. There is often a question of cruelty, solitude and a questioning of what is about to become.

Artist statement

"The fragmented visual presence of memory from the age of innocence is disturbingly detached and familiar. Curiosity plays a colorful role in the events of childhood. The process of learning and constructing self-identity through the latent memories of youth serves as catalyst for Curiel's creative world. History and figuration serve as natural ways to comment on the human condition. Curiel often uses allegory and symbolism to comment on current events and allow viewers to access, imagine, and re-live childhood. Storytelling in Curiel's paintings works like memory functions—non-sequential and fragmented, constructed and revealing with time. Rather than a linear narrative Christian Curiel depicts moments of activity or curiosity in which the viewer begins with what is given, questioning and developing different stories depending on personal experience. At first glance, images of the normal and everyday appear simple and innocent, yet upon looking closer, the tragic and anomalous begin to emerge.

Curiel's paintings have been exhibited in various solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums in the United States and abroad. Exhibitions include: Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris, France, The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, Florida, The American Society and Lehmann Maupin gallery in New York City. His collected works belong to several private, public and corporate collections, namely the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris, The Dean Valentine collection in Los Angeles, California and the Hort Collection in New York. In addition his works have been part of the Art in Embassies Program in Brasilia, Brazil. Also, the artist is a member of FeCuOp, a collaborative group based in Miami, Florida that experiments with social interactions and art. Curiel is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards and honors, including the Cintas Fellowship Prize and the Robert Schoelkopf Traveling Fellowship from Yale University School of Art. The artist was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico to Cuban parents in 1977. Christian Curiel received his Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from the Yale School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut. He now lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.