Today we’d like to introduce you to Juan Sepulveda.
Hi Juan, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hi, I’m Juan Sepúlveda. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, where my love for art and business started early. My mother was an artist in her own right, and my dad was a respected entrepreneur. Their creativity and drive really influenced how I have approached my career. In 1999, I moved to Florida in search of better opportunities as an artist.
Early on, something that really fueled my development was getting my foot in the door at Wyland Galleries, not as an artist yet, but as a framing specialist. That job turned into an unexpected masterclass. I had the privilege of working behind the scenes and learning directly from artists like Wyland, Jim Warren, and James Coleman. By 2004, I took the leap and became a full-time artist.
One of the proudest moments in my career happened in 2011 when I worked as a Scenic Artist during the Fantasyland expansion at Magic Kingdom. As a kid, I had always dreamed of contributing to the magic of Walt Disney World. That dream became real.
In 2018, I was named Florida’s Hispanic Heritage Month Featured Artist, which led to one of my paintings being added to the state’s permanent collection. A few years later, I was honored again when the Florida Department of Education included me in one of their school textbooks, helping inspire young artists across the state.
Today, I focus on creating art that invites reflection and conversation. I work with a style I call Perspectivism, which plays with perception and symbolism. My goal is to make art that not only looks good but also means something to the people who experience it.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There have been plenty of obstacles along the way; some small, some life-changing. Early on, I faced a lot of negativity when I told people I wanted to make a living as an artist. When I finally started approaching galleries, I didn’t yet have a cohesive body of work, so finding space to show my art felt almost impossible.
In 2004, I lost my mother to cancer, and that loss gave me an urgent push to leave my corporate job and become a full-time artist. For a few years, things went really well: my reach expanded rapidly, and I felt like I was on the right path. Then the 2007 economic downturn hit, and it hit hard. Around that same time, the art publisher/agent who had been distributing my work to galleries all over the U.S. suddenly went under; along with a large cache of my originals and reproductions. That loss only made the economic downturn worse, and I spent nearly a decade trying to get those pieces back.
What felt like an impossible mission finally ended when I drove from Kissimmee, FL, to an undisclosed location in California. I showed up unannounced on the doorstep of one of those former associates and simply demanded my paintings back. To my amazement, I left with the last few originals in hand.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I began as a surrealist painter, inspired by some of my artistic heroes like Salvador Dali, M.C. Escher, and Rene Magritte. As the years went on, I started finding my own voice (or brushstroke) and retain an element of surrealism, but one that carried a more optimistic outlook on life. I began calling it Inspirational Symbolism, because it used symbols to act as a catalyst for conversation and introspection.
My paintings were mostly informed by my own life experience but designed to get people to think and act differently. To consider new perspectives in life, informed by the challenges of life. Later in my career, I began experimenting with optical illusion paintings, which I used to create commemorative paintings of historical figures. This style, which I call Perspectivism, combined features from mosaics and OpArt to give the viewer different experiences based on how near or far they look at the paintings.
What I am most proud of in my artistic career is that my art and career were featured in a text book used by the Florida Department of Education for students of English as a second language. My story was featured next to other prominent Hispanic artist including Gloria Steffan and Willy Chirino.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
That what matters most is the present and that obsessing about the future or dwelling too much in the past are some of the most detrimental behaviors. I learned that I have only one person to compete against and that is my old self. To pursue excellence with every brushstroke and with every word, in order to move forward efficiently on this journey of self discovery and impact on those around me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://juansepulveda.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juansepulveda
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JuanOneSepulveda
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juanonesepulveda/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JuanOneSepulveda
