Lot 115 - Jean-Pierre Villafane - Forbidden Fruit

About 

Jean-Pierre Villafañe’s work operates at the intersection of painting and performance, where roles fracture, architectures dissolve, and theatricality dominates. Working primarily in oil on linen, Villafañe's meticulous process involves layering translucent pigments to create rich, textured surfaces that oscillate between opacity and transparency. His brushwork often leaves a trace of the hand, capturing both the immediacy of gesture and the quiet precision of detail. Figures slip in and out of their own reflections, caught in the act of becoming—exaggerated, distorted, and delightfully uncertain. 
 
A former architect, Villafañe approaches the canvas as both a construction site and a stage, where layered spaces collapse into psychological interiors, and bodies exist in a state of flux. His compositions revel in a carnivalesque dance between power and illusion, fantasy and deviance, submission and irreverence. Characters don masks—sometimes literal, sometimes metaphoric—oscillating between self-possession and self-parody. Public and private self, status, and social roles blur, slipping between pastiche and sincerity. The geometric segmentation of faces hints at the built environment, recalling how both cities and identities are assembled from fragments, juxtapositions, and erasures. 
 
A muted palette punctuated by sumptuous textiles and theatrical flourishes situates his work in a liminal space: part technocratic dystopia, part burlesque stage, part fever dream. Villafañe’s paintings flirt with art-historical undertones while refusing to take themselves too seriously. They play in the seduction of excess, the absurdity of decorum, and the irrepressible urge to escape one’s prescribed role. Figures lounge, drape, perform, or resist, their gestures frozen somewhere between choreography and collapse. Whether portraying boardroom intrigue or classical absurdity, his work insists that to inhabit space—whether architectural or societal—is to engage in an ongoing, ever-shifting act of role-playing. 

Education 

2016-2019 
Masters of Architecture, Columbia University GSAPP, New York, USA 
2011-2016 
BFA in Architecture, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA 

Solo Exhibitions 

2024 
Playtime, Charles Moffett, New York, NY  
 
2023 
The Armory Show, Embajada, New York, NY  
 
2022 
Fireworks, Hoffmann, Maler and Wallenberg, Nice, FR 
 
2021 
Baile Latinoamericano: Museo de Arte y Diseño, San Jose, CR 
 
2021 
Divertimento: Donde Hay Una Catastrofe, Hay Un Escape, Embajada, San Juan, PR 

Group Exhibitions 

2024 
Into the Abyss, Embajada, San Juan, PR 
 
2024 
Secular Gothic, Eyes Never Sleep, New York, NY 
 
2023 
Enlaces de Cambio, Diablo Rosso, Panama, PA 
 
2023 
Beach, Nino Mier, New York, NY 
 
2023 
Circadian Gardens, Eyes Never Sleep, New York, NY 
 
2022 
The Power To Dream, Galerie Hussenot, Paris, FR 
 
2022 
NADA Art Fair, Embajada, Miami, FL 
 
2022 
Escape From New York, Another Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 
 
2022 
Sobremesa, Yale School of Architecture, New Haven, CT 
 
2021 
NADA Art Fair, Charles Moffet, Miami, FL 
 
2018 
Apostasy, The Living Gallery, New York, NY 
 
2017 
(Not) Another Tower, Chicago Biennial, Chicago, IL 
 
2016 
Embodied Evolution, Davenport House Museum, Savannah, GA 
 
2011 
Dreaming Awake, De La Cruz Gallery, San Juan, PR 

Awards 

2023 
TPC Art Finance Presents Prize - The Armory Show 

Statement about AOAP Submitted Artwork 

In this piece, I envisioned the central figure as a reimagining of Satan in Paradise Lost, caught in the act of seduction and rebellion. Much like Milton’s Satan, who disguises himself as a serpent to corrupt humankind, this figure wears its own camouflage—the polka-dotted skin—suggesting both playfulness and deceit. The spots act as a subtle echo of scales, a visual nod to the serpent’s original sin and a reminder that the boundaries between human and otherworldly are often blurred. 
 
The figure holds a forbidden fruit aloft, its gesture both theatrical and inviting, extending an invitation not just to taste but to transgress. The rose in the other hand underscores this duality of temptation—both a promise of beauty and a prelude to thorns. The act of offering is not just about the fruit but about the promise of experience, an invitation to join him on a night out, to leave the safety of the interior (symbolized by the figure behind the wall) and step into the unpredictable world outside. 
 
In Paradise Lost, Satan's revenge against God is not just in the act of temptation but in the performance of it—the seduction through words and the spectacle of rebellion. I wanted this piece to capture that sense of performativity, where roles slip and meanings shift, embodying the tension between the absurd and the profound, the sincere and the parodic. The cat, a witness to this exchange, represents free will—the choice to follow, to rebel, or to remain an observer in a world built on illusion and performance.