Jonathan Yubi
Work Details
🛒 Artwork for Sale · $6,000 →About This Work
Death of a General Laborer, 2025
oil on canvas
60 x 44 inches
Death of a General Laborer is based on a 65-year-old undocumented temporary worker in New Jersey. In an interview with NJ.com, he is shown living alone in an unheated garage, padding the walls with layers of old clothing to survive the winter. His precarious existence stands in deliberate contrast to Benjamin West’s The Death of General Wolfe. This romantic painting immortalizes a fallen general surrounded by attendants, glory, and national symbolism. By reframing that historical composition through the lens of an overlooked laborer, this painting interrogates who is granted dignity and who becomes a subject of public memory.
Nuestro primo Héctor y la muerte de Abel, 2025
oil on canvas
56 x 50 in
Nuestro primo Héctor y la muerte de Abel is a Genesis story about Cain and Abel. As kids, we'd drive 90 minutes west to Panama City Beach to visit family for the holidays. Thanksgiving was always the most notable. Everyone would bring a small dish to Hector's place. He was my stepdad's nephew. He would present a kingly banquet, his offering to the family. It wasn't until I was a few years older and living away from home for college that I thought back on those days. To Hector, a man in his early 50's, and his long-time roommate, Luther.
Absalom Oh Absalom, 2025
oil on canvas
55 x 55 in
Inspired by William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! Which also drew inspiration from the Death of King David's son, Absalom. The novel is set in the Civil War-era South. The painting draws on my experiences growing up in the American South.
Artist Bio
Jonathan Yubi (b. 1993, Bronx, New York) is a first-generation Ecuadorian-American painter based in Bergenfield, New Jersey. His work explores labor, identity, and social unrest through historical allegories. His paintings center on construction workers—both documented and undocumented—placing them within historical landscapes and contemporary events to examine labor struggles as a defining thread of Pan-American history. Yubi earned his BFA from Lehman College, CUNY, and previously studied at Memphis College of Art and the University of Central Florida. From 2016 to 2017, he produced Artborne Magazine, a monthly arts publication in Central Florida focused on contemporary art and culture. His work has been exhibited at the Montclair Art Museum, Anna Zorina Gallery, 17 Frost Gallery, Satellite Gallery, and CityArts Factory, among others. He presented a solo exhibition with MiA Gallery in Philadelphia and has participated in exhibitions and public programs connected to New Jersey Monuments to Migration and Labor, a Mellon Foundation-funded initiative. Yubi completed a studio residency at Guttenberg Arts through the 2025 Space and Time Residency program. He received a 2026 Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, was awarded a 2027 Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, and serves on the Advisory Board of LaborArts, a New York-based organization dedicated to preserving and presenting the culture and history of working people.
Mediums
Painting, n/a