Sonogram (Turtle) Drawing

Belmar, born in 1970, grew up 2 hours south of Santiago, Chile. He got his degree in graphic design at the Unitvesity Catolica de Chile (DUOC) and, after graduating, left Chile for Ibiza, Spain, at the age of 24. He began painting professionally in Spain, using the Catalan Joan for his first name John. He came to Washington, D.C. four years later in 1999, and was granted permantent residency in the U.S. based on extraordinary artistic merit in 2003. The Lyrical Mylar constructions of Chilean born, Washington based artist Joan Belmar. In his recent work he has created a unique technique of 3-D painting, which combines his former painting and collage techniques with painted and untreated Mylar and acetate strips in circles and curvilinear shapes placed perpendicular to a painted background and then covered again (not always entirely) with a lightly frosted mylar that produces changes in transparency as light and the viewer move in relation to the work. This new work has attracted the attention of many art consultants and curators and collectors in DC: he has been asked to exhibit in WPA\C venues, has contributed successfully in many charitable art auctions, is included in the DC art bank and is his work is part of the permanent collection in The Wilson Building. Belmar's translucent sculptures are in the tradition of the abstract wooden boxes created 50 years ago by Louise Nevelson, yet completely fresh and original in their use of color and materials to achieve an almost shimmering effect. Although Belmar's new work is still relatively unknown in Washington, he was recently nominated by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities as finalist for its prestigious Outstanding Emerging Artist of the Year Award , to be presented by Mayor Adrian Fenty on March 19th at the Kennedy Center.