Jonathan Carela

Jonathan Carela, born in 1991, is an interdisciplinary artist & filmmaker born and based in the Dominican Republic, his work is primarily on mixed media, painting and video art. Carela received three Associates degrees at Altos de Chavón, the school of design, D. R.: Graphic design (2013), Fine Arts (2014), and Filmmaking (2020); in 2016, he received a scholarship to study filmmaking at CCA California College of the Arts.

His work seeks to reimagine Dominican culture, the human condition and social behavior in the Caribbean, informed by language, images, music, personal and shared experiences in the quotidian Dominican landscapes, with a discursive focus on racial and identity issues of our days.

During the Design Week in Santo Domingo 2023, he was a panelist in Meca Art Fair talks “Ruralizades”, simultaneously showing his work in CODAP (Sto. Dgo.) and Casa Mella Russo (Sto. Dgo.). He was artist in residence at Edge Zones (Miami, FL), where he continued his last body of work. His work has also been shown in: Museo Cándido Bidó, (Bonao, D. R.), Casa Quien Gallery (Sto. Dgo.), JVS Project Art Space (NY, NY), Centro de la Imagen, (Sto. Dgo.) and Centro León (Santiago. D. R.). In 2018 he attended the “Programa de Formación para artistas” workshop by Centro León (Stgo. D. R.) where he received training from various curators and accompaniment, closing with a collective exhibition.

  • Fulano De Tal, 2021

    Color film

    Duration: 7 mins

    This film takes an observational stance that prioritizes the spontaneous, the atmospheric, and the everyday, framing a poetics of use, waiting, and indifference. It documents two intimately connected bodies of water: the Fula River and its mouth at the Rincón Dam.

    Through the recording of these environments and their shared flow of water, social dynamics, gestures of human interaction, and natural force are revealed. A tension is posed between the ephemeral and the constant, the natural and the altered, the allowed and the forbidden.

    The title refers to the anonymous figure, the generic and collective subject who, though invisible, sustains, inhabits, and transforms these spaces: one builds, another permits, another doesn’t know.


  • Lleva y Trae, 2019

    Color fiim

    Duration: 6:36 min

    This film approaches everyday mobility through the observation of minimal gestures.

    It portrays the motoconchistas (motorcycle taxi drivers) at the entrance of Fula, in a rural area of the Dominican Republic, as they go about their daily work: transport, deliveries, various errands.

    The piece documents a spontaneous choreography of bodies and engines, marked by waiting, movement, and improvisation. In this constant coming and going, forms of agency, adaptation, and survival emerge—operating outside any formal structure.

    The gaze becomes an attentive presence, observing without intervening, capturing a fragmented yet eloquent reality. A poetics of transit, where the informal becomes language.