bio/curriculum vitae

Fernando Villanueva Rivera is a Puerto Rican painter whose practice operates at the intersection of Neo-Pop, Post-Pop, and contemporary image theory. He pursued formal studies in painting at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico in the late 1990s, developing a foundation grounded in material process and critical inquiry. Over a career spanning more than three decades, Villanueva has articulated an evolving visual language that interrogates systems of representation, consumption, and cultural production.

His work addresses the aesthetics and contradictions of late capitalism, using appropriation, repetition, and visual excess to destabilize traditional notions of originality and artistic value. In his most recent practice, Villanueva incorporates artificial intelligence as a generative and epistemological tool, positioning AI not as a substitute for authorship but as a collaborator that exposes the mechanics of image-making itself. AI-generated imagery functions as raw material—filtered, disrupted, and re-inscribed through painting—creating a productive tension between algorithmic logic and embodied gesture.

This hybrid methodology situates Villanueva’s work within contemporary debates on posthuman creativity, technological mediation, and the shifting role of the artist in an era of automated images. His work has been exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions and was recognized in 2002 with the “Exhibición del Año” award from the International Association of Art Critics (AICA), Puerto Rico Chapter. His paintings are included in significant public and private collections, including the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico and the Latin American Art Museum in Miami.

Through an ongoing dialogue between painting and artificial intelligence, Villanueva advances a critical practice that reflects on authorship, labor, and visual culture in the twenty-first century.