The Optimist.

There’s a sense of place in Enoc Perez’s work. Sometimes it’s a very small room shared by you and another person; sometimes it’s a building, a hotel, an architectural icon or a landscape. The effect is invariably the same. Perez’s paintings transport you somewhere else: another city, another country, and often another time altogether. Nostalgia pervades Perez’s oil-stick paintings, but his work is contemporary in only the way that vibrant hues and unusual color combinations can feel. With his buildings, it’s not always clear if you’re gazing at something from the 1920s, the 1950s or the 21st century, but there’s an optimism that beams through – perhaps the utopian ambitions that fueled the real-life versions (when they exist) in the first place. Perez’s still-lifes and nudes are vibrant and sleek; there’s a subtle confidence to his subjects. His work can be found in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, as well as the British Museum in London and the Museum of Contemporary Art in North Miami.