Giorgio Celin – Graduation

68projects is pleased to introduce Colombian artist Giorgio Celin’s first solo exhibition in Berlin, titled Graduation.

Giorgio Celin presents a series of works depicting what the migratory journey means to him from personal experience—growing up in Colombia and later migrating to several destinations in Europe. This migration story is reflected in his works, alongside his experiences as a queer person in the 21st century.

The characters in his glowing paintings display a sense of sorrow, visible in their facial expressions and in the way they carry their bodies. Movement and motion are suggested through their postures, conveying urgency, as if they might disappear at any moment. The closeness and companionship shown in their embraces create a strong sense of community. The people Celin paints are often marginalized and ostracized by society, portraying an intersectionality of queerness and immigration, and raising questions of belonging and exclusion.

Insignia of queer subculture merge with the formal language of his homeland as well as European visual traditions. Influenced by Japanese comics from the 1970s and beyond, the self-taught artist explores interpersonal moments in a virtuoso manner. His paintings are warm and full of tension; the colours are at times intense and overwrought, then again cloud-like and delicate—moving toward moments of perfect calm. The scenes are rarely without melancholy, evoking a time when physical closeness was still possible. Looking at them, one might think: “I would like that too.”

Celin tenderly explores diverse sensations, mostly between two people and their relationship to one another. Hands are as significant as eyes and posture. Men in Adidas sweatpants or jeans dance or cuddle closely, dissolving into one another. Sweat and emotional excitement are visible; faces often shimmer with what resembles blue bar light.

Celin’s images leave ample room for imagination. They evoke subtle smiles, convey life-affirming innocence, and encourage introspection. The paintings depict undefined or indefinable places of longing, alongside recognizable locations such as European metropolises like Berlin, Paris, or Barcelona, as well as Barranquilla—the artist’s native city on Colombia’s Atlantic coast, known for its legendary carnival, listed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003.

The queer figures in these images are not clearly binary; gender appears irrelevant. Everyone shares similar experiences. Everyone belongs together in a shared world. Europe connects with Colombia, Africans with Indigos, all of us with the world.

“Let’s be joyful and profound, a seeing eye and a warm heart. This is what Giorgio Celin wants to tell us with his vibrant, intensely expressive imagery. We should gratefully accept it. This beautiful feeling of finding something that often seems lost.”

— Text by Hans Krestel

Giorgio Celin was born in 1986 in Barranquilla, Colombia, and currently lives in Barcelona. His work explores themes of migration, belonging, relationships, and nostalgia, influenced by his experience as a Colombian migrant living in several European cities. He examines displacement and the feeling of not belonging to a single geographical location.

Celin has exhibited internationally, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, Fondazione Michelangelo Pistoletto in Venice, and through residencies in Colombia and Italy. Notable exhibitions include Las Olas (Eve Leibe Gallery, London, 2021), Messe in St. Agnes (Berlin, 2021), and recent shows with MISA Discoveries, König Galerie (Berlin), Eve Leibe Gallery (London), Annarumma (Naples), and Breach (Miami).

Graduation is accompanied by the book Painting = Poetry (released March 2022), featuring works from 2018 to the present and texts by Cecilia Monteleone, Paul Clinton, Jaider Orsini, and Maria Gaia Redavid. Published by Ludvig Rage, edited by Olivia Hontas.