Juan Bocca

KDR is pleased to present Exilic Garden, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Juan Bocca, on view at the KDR305 home gallery in Little Havana. About Drawing on botanical imagery and themes from the Book of Genesis, Bocca arrives at notions of desire and renewal, using painting to explore our relationship with the natural world. The "garden" becomes a site for thinking about longing, transformation, and the boundaries between human experience and the living world just outside the gallery. In Genesis, the Tree of Life is not forbidden at first, but becomes unreachable after the Fall. Bocca paints from this perspective: paradise remains visible but is no longer open to us. Smoke appears throughout his work and the exhibition, creating both atmosphere and meaning. It acts as a veil, showing the distance between people and the divine, and the confusion that comes after the Fall. Flowers and forbidden fruit appear throughout Bocca's work, showing contrasts like male and female, growth and decay, and presence and absence. In Large Hibiscus, a bright, lively bloom shows early signs of decay on close inspection. In another painting, Brugmansia, a flower that opens for just one night before fading, seems to bloom and close right before your eyes. Bocca's process reflects these cycles. He uses traditional methods like handmade grounds, glazing, abrasion, and crackled gesso, letting the surfaces show time, wear, and repetition. He builds, breaks down, and rebuilds images, with new color and light coming through worn areas, as if life keeps coming back through its own decay. "The paintings resist the idea of paradise as a merely lost or distant place," Bocca reflects. "Instead, they approach it as something that continues to make itself felt in the world around us." Read more Toggle Painting