Armando Veve: Taxonomy of a Dream

Armando Veve brings his latest exhibition, Taxonomy of a Dream, to Taller Puertorriqueño on Friday, December 11, with an opening reception from 5:30 PM to 8 PM. The show runs through February 13, 2027, so you've got plenty of time to catch it if you can't make the opening night.

Veve is a Philadelphia-based illustrator of Puerto Rican heritage, and this collection brings together work in graphite, watercolor, colored pencil, and gouache. He works across a few different mediums—pencil, paint, and ink—and the pieces bridge the personal and the universal. He draws on a wide range of traditions, from cave paintings to illuminated manuscripts, and treats the page as a space for literary, dreamlike reflection. It's the kind of work that asks you to slow down and look closely.

Veve describes his work as distilling "the beauty, absurdity, and horrors of being alive," and he speaks of hybridity as a space of belonging. The exhibition closes out Taller Puertorriqueño's programming cycle, and the organizers frame it as an affirmation that creativity is both a means of survival and a means of transcendence. It's a local artist showing in a local space, and the work is as much about the act of making as it is about the finished pieces.

Taxonomy of a Dream is free to attend. You can catch the opening reception on Friday, December 11, from 5:30 PM to 8 PM, or visit anytime through February 13 at Taller Puertorriqueño, 2600 N. 5th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19133.