Dalton Gata’s practice draws from Surrealism, Caribbean culture, and his background as a fashion designer. His paintings, drawings, and photographs reference popular culture to reflect upon the psychological and social effects related to physical appearance. Gata’s living and still life subjects present a vast spectrum of materiality and appearances that celebrate the beauty in diversity. They often exist within, or alongside, sprawling landscapes punctured by brutalist architectural elements or glistening, gilded objects. His expansive, otherworldly realm conveys both a romantic nostalgia and a looming uneasiness, leaving space for multiple interpretations. Together, his subjects and their imagined spaces provide an unparalleled vision of our society brimming with confident self-expression, concealed insecurities, and undeniable eccentricities.

Dalton Gata (b. 1977, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba) lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He graduated in 2005 from the Escuela de Diseño Altos del Chavón in Santo Domingo with a BFA in Fashion Design. He has had solo exhibitions at Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Galería Agustina Ferreyra, San Juan and Mexico City; Chapter NY, New York; Peres Projects, Berlin; Sunday Painter, London; and Embajada, San Juan; among others. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Mead Art Museum, Amherst; Americas Society Council of the Americas, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art Miami; Clima Gallery, Milan; Kurimanzutto, Mexico City; Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York; and Embajada, San Juan.