Jean Carlos Valentin Velilla

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Jean Carlos Valentin Velilla is an academic arts-based researcher who blends sociological and arts-based research practices. He explores Puerto Rican queer scholarship through drawings, focusing on men. He navigates the body's boundaries in social and symbolic contexts by using his and willing models' bodies. Challenging Western ideals of male beauty, his work incorporates folkloric masks with nude figures, highlighting queer Puerto Rican liminality. Inspired by Arnaldo Roche Rabell, Pepón Osorio, Cecilia Aldarondo, and Rafael Tufiño, he illuminates multifaceted Puerto Rican queer experiences. His drawings depict queer Puerto Rican men as tragic figures, reflecting his own experiences as an educator.

Jean Carlos Valentin Velilla is experienced in the development and oversight of k-12 visual arts programs in public and private education efforts in the North and South of Puerto Rico. His most recent collaborations took place in Caguas, Puerto Rico with the Instituto de Orientación y Terapia Familiar ( INOTEF) where he designed a leadership and art therapy program in collaboration with social workers and psychologist while living in the coastal town of Dorado. He has worked with Crearte in San Juan Puerto Rico and has served in supervisory roles with pre-service art teachers at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. In his personal scholarship and studio practice, he studies the representation and history of masculinity in Puerto Rican figurative art and design.