Voyager VIII by Julio Green

Photos:

Julio Green, an artist who moved to South Florida from Honduras in 1992, says he's been painting all of his life but in recent years began studying with Nancy Giannone and learning "more techniques of how to apply paint and incorporate texture and different things."

Those lessons, combined with a week spent visiting New York art museums last year, changed the way he paints."I never went to the museums in New York and then I saw all that massive,  oh my God, art from Picasso, Renoir and all of the masters, face to face," Green says. "That was a source of inspiration for me and it drastically changed my course and the way I was painting ... Now its all liberal, so free." It's also darker since hw watched Pan's Labyrinth, a movie set in Spain after the Spanish Civil War, about a sadistic army officer's stepdaughter who finds refuge in a neglected and fantastical garden full of magical creatures.

"There are already three series from that trip and that movie,"Green says.

Green has exhibited paintings from his Portal, Voyager and Texturas series, as well as another series based travelers he has seen at airports, at a recent Miami Art Exchange Exhibition, and Gallery 101 and Art Expressions Gallery, both in Fort Lauderdale, and Xinqo Art Gallery in North Miami.

On Jan. 8, Green and a few other artists who have studios in a space across from Pearl in Oakland Park, will have a joint show. Details will be posted here closer to the time of the show. Meanwhile, here's a photo gallery of some of Green's recent works.