Dzine (b. Carlos Rolon, 1970)

Through an ongoing response to popular culture, baroque elements, post-conceptual methods, romanticism, craft-making, and appropriation, Chicago-based artist Dzine has developed his own language that is finding its place in our contemporary art discourse.
Often dissected and consistently engaging, his work addresses culture through a lens of spirituality, beauty, desire, and identity. A mixture of sculpture, paintings, and installation, Dzine’s works reside in an imaginative, kaleidoscopic, and meticulous world. The juxtaposition and combination of the studio paintings, the appropriated and original “kustom kulture” sculptures result in hybrid artifacts that are beautifully crafted, aggressive, thoughtful, sexual, and strangely seamless. Raw, sexually physical, and powerful, the large-scale paintings consume our attention and drawing us closer to their iconography. There is no casual gaze at these art works, as the visual excess that repels and then pulls the viewer into the unknown. Dzine seeks to change the rules concerning the final image, and this act of pure deconstruction illuminates how male can become female, how baroque can be minimal, and how rational can become emotional. The resulting works prove to be universal and painstakingly honest.
As noted by the Art Critic Stephanie Gonzlanez – Turner in her review of Dzine’s first solo exhibition at New Yorks Deitch Projects, “Dzine brings an outsiders veneration to the pastime - ….here the sincerity of the craft resounds more than its gaudiness”.

Dzine is a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation award for Painting and Sculpture. His work has been included in exhibitions and in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York - Collection Vanmoerkerke, Oostende, Belgium - Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev - Museo del Barrio, NY and Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan. He has participated in residencies at The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, United Kingdom and Instituto Buena Bista, Curacao Centre For Contemporary Art. In 2007 Deitch Projects, NY presented Barrio Dreams, introducing the new sculptural work influenced by the Chicano Lowrider culture at Art Basel Miami Beach. This followed the success of his presentation at Poem of an Inland Sea, Ukrainian Pavilion, 52nd Biennale di Venezia.

Along with an upcoming solo exhibition at the Bass Museum of Art, Miami during Art Basel, December 2009. Solo museum exhibitions include,Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Punk-Funk, Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis. Museum Het Domein, Sittard, The Netherlands.

Dzine lives and works in Chicago and San Juan, and is represented by:
Deitch Projects, NYC
Scai the Bathhouse, Tokyo
Leeahn Gallery, South Korea