Stanley Bermudez was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1965 and raised in Venezuela. He returned to the United States to attend college in Houston in 1983. He went on to obtain a Master of Fine Arts from Radford University in Virginia. He has worked as a bilingual teacher in both Texas and Indiana and now resides in Athens, Georgia.

Artist Statement:
"This show at La Peña consists of paintings from my Line or Continuity series, my current work with Flags, Oil Industry Images, and more.

Continuity is an open series where I keep adding more and more images as I paint. It is basically a set of contemporary portraits of members of my family, people in American History and Latin American History, and people in popular culture both American and Venezuelan. I consider this series a type of installation, where the paintings are hung side by side touching each other creating a continuous viewing of the images. The paintings can be hung on top of each other and also placed on the floor, hung in groupings, or hung in a more conventional manner. It changes from space to space and from show to show.

Banderas is a large format series of paintings that deal with the symbolism found in different world flags (American, Mexican, and Venezuelan). The images also deal with social and political issues as well. I also combine visually some of these flags to create new flags and in turn new symbols and meanings. The Oil Industry series developed from growing up in oil camps in Venezuela and living in Houston for many years.

I work with acrylics on canvas using a hard edge approach were I do not blend any colors. My process is very similar to the process that Roy Lichtenstein used, however the end result is very different. One striking characteristic of my paintings is the use of vibrant colors which I believe comes from growing up in Maracaibo, Venezuela and being exposed to the colors of the city, to Venezuelan folk art, to the work of the Guajiro Indians and their tapestries, as well as the work of Venezuelan contemporary masters like Carlos Cruz Diez and the late Jesus Soto. Viewers have found my paintings to be dynamic, vibrant, and funny, surrealistic at times, and with a Pop-Art/Op-Art quality to them at others, all of which are readings that I want the work to have." - Stanley Bermudez

Related Links:
http://www.stanleybermudez.com