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(b. 2000, Managua, Nicaragua )

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Javier Robelo makes drawings, prints, sculptures, costumes, and performances that excavate and celebrate queer feeling. Using a cartoon-like figurative style, he abstracts personal experiences into the essence of being and being with others. The distressed yet playful characters inhabiting his work bend over, twist, and stumble; they melt into each other, dissolve into the landscape, and are weathered by time. Across mediums, Javier finds beauty in the pathetic, courage in vulnerability, and liberation in feeling out-of-place. 

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EDUCATION

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• The University of Texas at Austin, MFA in Studio Art, Printmaking and Sculpture, 2025

• Williams College, BA in Art History and Studio Art with Honors, 2022

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EXHIBITIONS

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• Faculty Show, The Gordon Brunner Family Gallery, Interlochen, Michigan, 2024

• Leaves Floating Upwards, Russel Janis Gallery, Brooklyn, New York, 2024

• ENSEMBLE, Visual Arts Center, Austin, Texas, 2024

• Superstitions, SOMOS collective, Austin, Texas, 2023

• You Are Here, 112 Water Street, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2023

• Not how I planned it: misprints from Nowhere, The Berkshire Art Center, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 2022

• Delivery Systems, the Joseph Gross Gallery at the University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 2022

• Searching for Sticky Voids, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2022

• BAA Fellowship Show 2022, Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 2022

• charm bracelet, Images Cinema,  Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2021

• BAA Fellowship Show 2021, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 2021

• 120° Intercollegiate Art Regional, The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, New York, 2021

• Kapchiy: Night of our Arts, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2019

• Nicaragua Sostenible, Nicaragua Diseña, Managua, Nicaragua, 2018

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FELLOWSHIPS & AWARDS

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• Good Neighbor Scholarship, 2024

• John F. Newnam Endowed Presidential Fellowship in Studio Art, 2024

• Isabell Smith Herzstein Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Art, 2023

• Mort Baranoff Endowed Scholarship, 2023

• Good Neighbor Scholarship, 2023

• Karl E. Weston 1896 Prize for Distinction in Studio Art, 2022

• BAA Fellowship Show Award, 2022

• Class of 1960 Scholars and Fellows Program, 2021-2022

• Class of 1957 Summer Research Program, 2021

• Alumni Sponsored Internship Program Grant, 2020

• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s Summer Practicum, 2020

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COLLECTIONS

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• Tyler School of Art and Architecture's Queer Materials Lab, Philadelphia, PA, 2024

• Williams College Libraries, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2022

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Creatives in Quarantine: Javier Robelo ’22

Artistic Citizenship Collaborative Creative Project Grant

Stick/Ground for Guggenheim Summer Practicum's Sustainable Futures

Collaborative Fresco Mural

Searching For Sticky Voids

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