East Hollywood Fine Art is proud to present Geraldo Perez: The Chicago Paintings, a selection of paintings on canvas and phone books all made over the past 7 years. After being bought out of his New York apartment, Perez moved to the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois and purchased a house, where he was able to convert his entire basement into his studio. The Chicago Paintings present a survey of memories lived and experienced from Perez’s birth in 1962 in the Dominican Republic, to his family’s emigration to New York six years later, and to his day-to-day experiences with intimacy, family, and transition. The paintings reflect on a chance encounter with Basquait at Danceteria, studying under Jack Whitten and Dore Ashton at Cooper Union in the 2000’s, war and death in the DR, being a father, being brown, seeing the MOMA for the first time, making love, and so much more. The strength and breadth in The Chicago Paintings comes from the unique language reflected through the images, almost screaming out: I am American but I am also an immigrant, I am a regular guy, but I am also a weirdo, I am a strong, but also soft. Two things can be true at the same time, maybe even more than two. The narrative weaves in and out of representation where color takes over for moments, other times a fabric pattern or an embossed wallpaper in the background take the lead. Whatever the source of Perez’s strange energy, the paintings fulfill a promise to open up the deeply personal of one person into the vast breadth of our own humanness, reminding us that even in our distance and assumed unfamiliarity, we too know these people, these experiences, and these places.