MEET THE ARTISTS
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Jean-Michael Vissepó
(b. 1988, San Juan, Puerto Rico) works across drawing, social practice, education, and street performance. His solo exhibitions include JUMBOLDT JIBARITO (2025) and CERROMAR BLUES (2025) at Pública Espacio, Santurce, Puerto Rico, as well as NO ME LA QUIEREN DAR PERO SE PASAN EN MIS ESTORIS (2023) at El Cuadrado Gris, Santurce, curated by Anna Astor-Blanco. Earlier projects include Mindfulness Through Art: A Participatory Exhibition (2018) at the Nashville Public Library, part of his teaching artist residency there.
He completed the program Integración de las Artes Visuales al Currículo Preescolar at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (2023). Recent group exhibitions include Mercado Marginal at La Vitrina, Arecibo, and SAOCO: A Puerto Rican Artists Exhibition curated by Sabroso Projects in New York (2021). His awards and residencies include Fábricas Culturales, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (2019), abrasiveMedia (2018), and Arts for Learning (2016–17).
Vissepó currently lives and works in Barrio El Gandul, Calle Cerra, Santurce, Puerto Rico.
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María Lucía Varona Borges
(b. 1993, San Juan, Puerto Rico) began her studies in theater before transferring to visual arts at the University of Puerto Rico. She learned embroidery from her grandmother, later expanding the practice to address contemporary cultural and political conditions.
Her residencies include the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), Brooklyn (2018); Flux Factory, Queens (2019); Program for Independent Studies, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, San Juan (2020); ACRE Residency, Wisconsin (2021); Teton Artlab, Jackson, WY (2022); New Wave Art Residency, Palm Beach (2022); and the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center, New York (2022). She will join Art Omi, New York, in 2023.
Varona’s first solo exhibition, LABOR-DADA, took place in 2021 at Embajada, San Juan. Group exhibitions include The Green Gallery, Milwaukee (2021); Abrons Art Center, New York (2021); Embajada, San Juan (2020); Flux Factory, Brooklyn (2019); BronxArtSpace, New York (2017); and Roberto Paradise, San Juan (2017). She is currently featured in No Existe un mundo post huracán at The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2022), curated by Marcela Guerrero.
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Karlo Andrei Ibarra
(b. 1982, Puerto Rico) holds a BFA in Painting from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico. He is both an artist and cultural manager, and co-founder of the contemporary art space Km 0.2 in Santurce.
Ibarra’s work directly engages with Puerto Rico’s political condition as an unincorporated U.S. territory, aesthetically examining the implications of this relationship. He has exhibited extensively across Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, Europe, and Asia, including in Cuba, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Taiwan, and the United States (San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, among others).
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Edgardo T. Larregui
Painter, photographer, draftsman, and urban artist. He earned his BA in Art from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico in 2003. Since 1998, he has led Coco de Oro, an art project for youth in marginalized communities across Puerto Rico.
As part of the 1st Biennial of Urban Art GRAPÓPOLIS (2008), he created Expropiados, a 240-foot mural along the Baldorioty de Castro Avenue outside the Puerto Rico Museum of Art. He received Third Prize at the Certamen de Arte Joven, Oriental Bank de Puerto Rico (2009).
Larregui has held solo exhibitions in Puerto Rican galleries and participated in group shows in Puerto Rico, the United States, Spain, and England. Working across graffiti, painting, drawing, and photography, his practice addresses the social and political challenges facing Puerto Rican society.