Juan José Cielo, Vendor and Flying Car, 2025

Juan José Cielo is a Colombian American artist based in New York City. Cielo focuses on painting, photography and short films that speak on his Colombian heritage. His works envision a futuristic world that reflects his cultural background and experiences with his identity, viewing the future as the connection between where we come from and where we are going. His work challenges viewers to think about the present in relation to the future and the preservation of culture and places through time and change.

In Vendor and Flying Car, Cielo depicts a street vendor selling a snack to an unseen customer piloting a flying car. Cielo’s work brings a distant future to the present moment, marrying that which exists in the present to what will exist in the future. His work cements Hispanic culture and heritage firmly in the canon of a world that has not yet come to be, proudly stating that the Hispanic community has been here, is still here, and is not going anywhere. This lens of deviating from the art historical canon and challenging what cultural norms look like through works is mirrored in the 2015 acquisition by Derrick Adams, Game Changing (Ace). In Game Changing, Addams depicts a black figure as the face for the Ace of Spades. A card that does not traditionally have a face attached is made into a card representative of the black community’s fight to create space where there was none allotted to them. Vendor and Flying Car also discusses making space for communities that are often counted out of conversation, particularly as it pertains to co-creating a world for future generations.

CAPP Committee Selection 2024 - 2025

Stamp Gallery, 2026