"What we have left is the street and a resistance movement"

Rafael Trelles was born in the Santurce neighborhood of San Juan in 1957 and began studying painting at the age of eleven under the instruction of Catalan painter Julio Yort. In 1980, Trelles graduated from the Universidad de Puerto Rico with a degree in Fine Arts, magna cum laude. In 1983, he pursued graduate studies at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). His work has been exhibited internationally including in New York, Florida, Mexico and in a major exhibition in 2018, Santurce, un libro mural, at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico. He resides and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico and I was happy to have the opportunity to speak with him regarding the trajectory of Puerto Rican art and the struggle to safeguard the island’s cultural heritage amid political and economic pressures.