JOAN BELMAR was born in Santiago, Chile.
He left Chile for Spain at the age of 24. He began painting professionally in Spain, using the Catalan name Joan for his first
name John. He came to Washington, DC four years later in 1999, was granted permanent residency in the US based on extraordinary
artistic merit in 2003, and became a citizen in 2010.
Belmar is well known for his unique technique of 3-D painting. He
combined his former painting and collage techniques
with both painted and untreated Mylar/paper strips in circles and curvilinear shapes. This technique produces variations
in transparency, as light
and the viewer move in relation to the work. The sheer quality of these translucent materials captures and reflects light
and encourages an up close viewing of the work to reveal the different layers within.
In 2007, Belmar was a Mayor’s Art Award Finalist as an
outstanding emerging artist in Washington, DC. The DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities recognized him with an Artist
Fellowship Program grant in 2009, and in 2011
he was awarded an Individual Artist Grant by the Arts and Humanities Council of
Montgomery County, MD. He is a two-time recipient of the Maryland Arts Council Individual Artist Grant in Visual Arts: Painting,
in 2010 and 2013.
Belmar’s work is
part of many private and public collec- tions, including the University of Maine Museum of Art’s Permanent Collection.
In 2016 he won first place, from among 2,240-received artworks, for best Original Work in the prestigious Osten Biennial of
Drawing in Macedoni