Truth Bomb, after Roy Lichtenstein’s Whaam! 1963. Painting

The artistic practice of Helwing Villamizar (b. 1974, Caracas, Venezuela) ranges from paintings influenced by post–World War II American female abstract expressionism and 1970s film to projects that explore mid-XX century Venezuelan artists and cultural institutions and their relationship to his own bi-cultural artistic identity. Villamizar moved to the US when he was 11 and began his art studies there while his parents completed their post-graduate work in theology. Seven years later, he moved back to Venezuela to start his BA at the Armando Reverón art institute, where he would explore his sense of alienation in his own country through painting. Villamizar’s work has been shown at major Caracas galleries and museums, including the Sala Mendoza, the Fine Arts Museum, the Alejandro Otero Museum, and the Caracas Museum of Contemporary Art. His work has also been featured at the X Iberoamerican Art Fair, the International Biennial of Contemporary Art ULA, and the KuZo Culture Zone Sziget Festival, and he has participated as an invited artist in the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection’s Emerging Connections program. He lives and works in Caracas, Venezuela.