Juan Sánchez is part of a generation of artists who in the 1980s to 1990s began exploring questions of ethnic, racial and national identity in their work, be it through painting, video, performance or installation. Sánchez is known for producing mixed media works that address issues of Puerto Rican life in the U.S. and on the island. Sanchez continues to combine painting and photography with other media clippings and found objects to confront America's political policies and social practices concerning his parents' homeland of Puerto Rico. Sánchez often addresses Puerto Rico's battle for independence and the numerous obstacles facing disadvantaged Puerto Ricans in the U.S.
Sánchez has been awarded several grants and fellowships, which include the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, and New York Foundation for the Arts, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others. He is the recipient of the 2020 CUAA Augustus Saint Gaulden Achievement in the Visual Art Award and is inducted into The Cooper Union Hall of Fame.
Sánchez’ art is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and El Museo del Barrio, all in New York City; The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC; El Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico and El Centro Wilfredo Lam in Havana, Cuba, among others.
Sánchez is a professor of painting, photography and combined media at Hunter College in New York City.
