Miguel trelles
Miguel Trelles is a Puerto Rican visual artist based in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where he works at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center. He currently serves as Co-Executive Director of Teatro LATEA and is the Co-Founder, Co-Producer, and Head Visual Arts Curator of the Borimix Puerto Rico Fest.
Trelles is best known for his Chino-Latino painting series, which merges classical Chinese painting techniques with Pre-Columbian and Latin American imagery, creating a vibrant dialogue between diverse artistic traditions. Alongside his paintings, his silkscreens pay tribute to the rich Puerto Rican screen-printing movement of the late 20th century, celebrating Latino culture through bold, popular iconography.
An accomplished educator, Trelles has taught Studio Art and Art History at institutions including Baruch College, Hunter College, Brown University, and Fairleigh Dickinson University, as well as in several cities across China.
His work has been exhibited internationally in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Lima, San Juan, Santo Domingo, Havana, Tegucigalpa, Buenos Aires, Paris, and Chengdu. Trelles’ paintings are part of major permanent collections, including El Museo del Barrio and Deutsche Bank in New York, Fundación Gabarrón in Valladolid, and El Museo de Arte de Ponce and the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture in San Juan.
Through his art, Miguel Trelles explores connections between the Caribbean, the Americas, and Asia — blending cultural histories, color fields, and figurative imagination into a unique visual language that reimagines the idea of a Pan-American identity.
