Bio

Studio Lenca is the working name of artist Jose Campos – ‘Studio’ refers to a space for experimentation and a constantly shifting place; ‘Lenca’ refers to the name of the artist’s ancestors from El Salvador.

 Studio Lenca received an MA from Goldsmiths University of London. Recent solo exhibitions include Untitled, Miami; Soho Revue, London; Artual Beirut; and Tang Contemporary, Seoul. Studio Lenca’s work is part of the following collections:

The Pérez Art Museum Miami
Parrish Art Museum
Colección Adriana Cisneros Griffin
Elie Khouri Art Foundation
The MER Foundation
The Poma Collection
The Mario Cader-Frech Collection

Jose Campos was born in La Paz, El Salvador, and, like many, had to flee the country during its violent civil war in the late 1980s. He travelled to the US by land, illegally with his mother, and grew up in the gaze of a strictly conservative administration—an ‘illegal alien’. Studio Lenca is focused on ideas surrounding difference, knowledge, and visibility. He works with performance, video, painting, and sculpture.

Studio Lenca’s process starts with personal memories and is underpinned by social activism and different forms of praxis.

Studio Lenca's paintings tell an autobiographical story that navigates borders and identities destroyed, redrawn, and erased through colonisation and war. The portraits depict the artist and his community proudly wearing hats and vibrant colours in noble defiance of the ‘Western’ discourse around migration.

(Image credit: Marc Hibbert)