Juan delGado is currently working with photography, video and digital media. For several years the subject of his work has been an investigation of the relationship between body and self and the social and cultural representations of sexuality, gender, and disability in the Western society. Being profoundly deaf, delGado has developed strikingly strong visual work exploring notions of displacement because of disability, gender,sexual orientation or culture.
See selections of Juan's video work at the
Born in Spain, delGado studied art in Valencia (Spain) and an MA in Media Arts at the University of Westminster..In 1997, delGado began to experiment with film and installation. Artists such as Isaac Julien, Shirin Neshat, and Jean Genet are of great influence in his work. He directed the experimental film The Passion of Teresa, in which develops his own style in a clear homage to the surrealist filmmaker Luis Bu–uel focusing the tradition of representation of religious images in Spain. The film was selected at the 3rd Disability Film Festival, and the Portobello Film Festival 2001, and Tampere International Film Festival, Finland, 2002.
In 1997 delGado began the series of fifteen photographic prints entitled The Wounded Image. Drawing on the work of American tabloid photographers of the 1930s, 40s and 50s such as Weege, these "traumatic" nocturnal images remind us of those 'scenes of crime' photographs that we associate with the decadent metropolis. He has recently commisioned to develop a new work entitled "Chronicle of a Summer", an experimental film which explores the traumatic experience of the Spanish Civil War and that was reflected in the film productions of the Franco's era.
delGado was awarded a Sciart bursary by The Wellcome Trust to research and develop ideas on the subject of auditorial perception and tinnitus. In collaboration with the scientists Dr Jonathan Ashmore and Richard Hallam, he and the Italian artist Fabrizio Manco will be investigating the representation of the so-called 'white noises' and will eventually produced a piece for its exhibition.
December, 2007This first edition of the Atlantic Basin Project has been made possible by the efforts of members of the Independent Artists Cooperative and its in house collective Rock Can Roll Independent and through the generous support of the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council.