The Shedding
COMING SOON
"The Shedding is a series of eight paintings that emerged from a performative painting action Joaquín Villarino staged in 2024. The project began with a large-scale canvas divided into four chromatic zones, each corresponding to a life stage: blue for birth, yellow for childhood, purple for adolescence, and white for renewal and a new beginning.
In the initial performance, Villarino threw paint onto a dancer, Marco Palomino, who moved across the prepared canvas. The action created a visual record of movement, spontaneity, and the tension between predetermined structure and improvisation. The chromatic divisions functioned as both temporal markers and emotional territories, mapping a biographical timeline through color and gesture.
Following the performance, Villarino cut the large canvas into individual sections, transforming the single performative document into eight autonomous paintings. He then worked into each fragment, developing the surfaces through layering. The resulting works range from 8ft x 5.5ft to 12ft x 6.4ft, executed in Mixed Media [Acrylic Painting, Oil Painting, Oil Pastel, Graphite, Charcoal].
The series was created during a period of significant personal transition for Villarino, including the birth of his first child and his commitment to sobriety. Rather than functioning as purely autobiographical documents, the paintings use personal experience as a framework for examining broader themes of transformation, continuity, and the relationship between past and present selves. The performative action, documented through video and photographs, together with the resulting paintings, offer viewers multiple entry points into witnessing this process of cathartic transformation."
DELIA CABRAL
Art Writer & Curator
The Shedding
PERFORMANCE DOCUMENTATION, 2024
In the initial performance, Villarino threw paint onto a dancer, Marco Palomino, who moved across the prepared canvas. The action created a visual record of movement, spontaneity, and the tension between predetermined structure and improvisation. The chromatic divisions functioned as both temporal markers and emotional territories, mapping a biographical timeline through color and gesture.
