*Studio selfie. 2020

Eduardo Shlomo Velázquez (born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) is a visual artist and filmmaker working in video, painting, performance, and multimedia installations.  Velázquez graduated with a BA/BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and received his MFA from SUNY Buffalo. Velázquez’s work has been presented in North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia, including El Museo del Barrio, NYC; ARTICULE, Montreal; The Today Art Museum, Beijing; Black to the Future, Paris; Latino and Iberian Film Festival at Yale University, New Haven; Wotever DYI Film Festival, London. In 2014, Velázquez founded the international indie production company, Verandi Films. His short film, GUAO, was part of the official selections of more than 20 festivals worldwide, winning Best Caribbean Film at Martinique Film Festival, and Audience Award at the Artist Forum: The Festival of the Moving Image in NYC. His short film GUAO is the first Dominican film to address trans-culture and religion in the Dominican Republic.

Social causes and activism are close to Velázquez's life’s mission, working with different activist groups for immigrant rights, such as DACA, Sanctuary Campus, and LGBTQI+ rights. His work has been recognized by various foundations including an artist's fellowship at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies speaker series, and awarded the Kathryn Davis Fellowship for Peace.

Velázquez continues to make films and performance work that depicts the life of the Caribbean diaspora in North America, cultivating an audience for alternative Latin American cinema in the United States. His latest film About Colonia is exploring the Afro-Latinx experience in the diaspora. About Colonia was nominated to best film, best director, and won the best actress award at the Queens World Film Festival in NYC.