Carlos Barberena

Carlos Barberena (b.1972) is a Contemporary Printmaker based in Chicago.

Barberena is known for his satirical relief prints and the use of images from pop culture, as well as from political and cultural tragedies. In his art, he has consistently reflected on the cycles of repression and resistance and its relationship to the Diaspora in which he has lived, throughout dictatorship, revolution, erasure, renewal, hope, dictatorship and repression. His prints center these types of life experiences occurring far beyond his country. He creates to counteract the great silence around repression occurring globally believing we are all intimately connected to it. He seeks to demystify the “foreign” experience, to bridge the distances that life across any border or wall produces, but also, the difference in the content of these experiences. He creates to bring awareness to the interconnectedness among them, focusing on injustices of social, political, economic and environmental injustice. At time he evokes with satirical images, at others, through the mundane, unseen things people carry: memories, attachments, relationships and traumas. In each he highlight the myriad cycles of oppression and struggle.
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Barberena has exhibited individua...

Self-taught Artist

- "Gráfica América" Curated by Gabriela Martínez & Rogelio Gutiérrez, Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach, CA. USA. - “1st International Academic Printmaking Alliance Invitational Exhibition”/ un-Folding / des-Doblamientos: Metaphoric Resonances in Contemporary Latin American Printmaking / The Imperial Ancestral Temple Art Museum, Beijing, China. - “Back to Chaos / Atpakal Haosa” - American Printmakers - Rigas Art Space, Riga, Latvia. - “The 9th Biennale Internationale d’Estampe Contemporaine Trois Rivieres”, Centre d’exposition Raymond-Lasnier, Quebec, Canada. - “The Future”, SG Gallery, Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Venezia, Italy. - Featured Artist (Solo Exhibition) at “The 9th Triennial Mondial de L’Estampe et de la Gravure Originale” Curated by Iréne Weiss, Clermont-Ferrand, Chamalieres, France. - “The 7th International Printmaking Biennial of Douro”, Lamego Museum in Portugal. - “Printmaking In / In Graafika Fest”, Linnagallerii, Parnu, Estonia. - “The IX Nicaraguan Visual Arts Biennial” (IX BAVNIC): “Recycling Memory: Recapturing the Lost City”, PAC Museum, Managua, Nicaragua. - “Tartu Printmaking Fest 2014”, Tartu Art House, Tartu, Estonia. - “LAPS 21, National Printmaking Biennial”, Curated by Jack Rutberg...