Ivy Brown Gallery is honored to host the first solo exhibition, ‘Hedgehog’s Skin’ by Juan Miguel Palacois, opening Thursday, December 12, 6-8pm.

In this exhibition, Juan Miguel Palacois investigates "the skin of the hedgehog". ‘I take a tour of some of the works, in my opinion the most important of the last three years. Like the skin of a hedgehog I wanted to create an uncomfortable and pricking show. Somehow, provoking the viewer into a feeling of restlessness and uneasiness while watching it.’

During this time Palacios’s work has being focused on the reflection and development of situations of "inequality", which unfortunately still continue to define our socio-political and cultural landscape, in which aggression plays a leading role.

“The point is to make people hate and fear each other and look out only for themselves in this land of inequality that we have to inhabit today… It's going to be an extremely ugly society.” “Words with which the prestigious American thinker and linguist, Noam Chomsky explains the concept of inequality in his documentary "Requiem for an American Dream."

“Neoliberalism, as a political form that defines the economic paradigm of our time, is a set of economic categories that rejects every concept and idea outside its conceptual scheme. This neoliberal thinking of capitalism contradicts every fundamental postulate of democracy and human rights, given its predatory and violent character organized for the benefit of capital and the profits of just a few.”

Somehow, whenever there is a situation of inequality, there is an act of aggression. I have always been sadly interested in such aggressive behaviors, both in which an exercise of power and dominance is intended, perhaps as a mechanism of defense, and those that occur in the face of inferiority and fear. Or just simply those that are inherent in our human condition. In fact, we all have the ability to inflict pain on others. In my opinion, if there is a sector of the society that has unfortunately suffered the greatest inequality, it has been the female gender. The series "Wounds" is a tribute to women, in which I try to make public the constant aggression to which female gender is still undergoing nowadays. From verbal discrimination, to physical aggression and salary difference just to mention a few, in which memory plays an important role. In this series I intend to place the viewer in the face of the consequences of having suffered profound pain, ultimately, psychological damage. Exhaustion, a silence that is silent, the breath that escapes, strength in the body, beauty and vigor, life and injury, vivacity and demolition are opposites that place you in front of an incompatible sum and an unattainable harmony.

Thus, in a clearly metaphorical way, I use the image of a woman who has been or is being attacked, as a symbol of the most disadvantaged masses. Continuing with this line of thought, and extrapolating aggression to an individual level, “The Wanderers” series is a reflection and analysis of personal frustrations. How we can inflict harm and pain to ourselves caused by our own expectations. Since I arrived to New York, almost as a daily task, I go for a walk or just ride the subway to nowhere with the sole purpose of observing. To see and analyze through the gaze, and make a deep reading of the city. The city of opportunities.

After a few years moved by the excitement and desire, among which, everything was fascinating, I began to feel that I was facing an army without destiny. As the city itself ends up trapping many of those who came with high expectations of improvements. In order to earn more money, or to excel and stand out in a career that ends up being goalless. As a result of frustrations facing the expectation, it makes us nomads without destiny trapped in the same circle in which we turn around without finding an end. How the lack of success in the face of others configures us tremendous harm and pain that makes us wandering like ghosts without significance or meaning.

Materials also play a leading role, the choice of drywall panels that emulate walls that represent the solidity, strength and hardness in themselves, but when subjected to constant blows they come to break and crack like wounds.”