(B.1997) Juan Rodriguez Sandoval is a Guatemalan-born, Latin-Australian interdisciplinary artist and curator. He respectfully lives and works in Gippsland, Victoria, on Brayakaulung Country (Gunai Kurnai Nations).

 

His practice bridges his Latin heritage, roots and memory with a focus on ecological concern, devastation and care. His work sits on the premise of social practice and imaginative world-

building, often employing quasi-interventions,  to explore: “abandoned” or "neglected" truths, to re-imagine colonial storytelling and fables, and re-frame the way in which we approach and frame the “mythical” in the current and endangered state of environmental sovereignty.

​

Juan primarily works with earthly, bio-organic matter and found materials, which he believes

are living conduits with unique properties that speak and sing to geographic, cultural and historic significance. He values

material sovereignty, as it impacts both the temporality and lifespan of his practice.

 

Juan believes in sustainable approaches to artmaking that expand beyond upcycling/recycling, to propagating materials that create a consensus and reflective experience to remind the spectator about ecological awareness, culture, and material intelligence.

 

Juan has exhibited his work across various renowned and credited galleries across Naarm (West Space, Blindside Gallery, Trocadero Projects), alongside commercial gallery spaces (Marfa Gallery, No Vacancy Gallery, The Other Art Fair) and institutional 

spaces (Latrobe Regional Gallery, Incinerator Gallery). Furthermore, Juan has shown in

Launceston, Tasmania, Darwin, Northern Territory, Baltimore, U.S.A, São Pablo, Brazil,

London England.

 

Additionally, Juan has seen public success as the awarded artist for the Latrobe Regional Gallery public art commission on the Moe-Yallourn Rail Trail (2022 – 23). He has been a recipient of Creative Australia funding for his project ‘From the Subterranean: We Come (2024)’. He has taken extensive and successful artist residencies with the Land Art Collective in London, Olhao Gallery in Sao Pablo, and with the Centre for Projection Art in Collingwood. Juan’s work is housed in both private and public collections. ​