Josep Uclés studied at the Escola d'Arts Aplicades i Oficis Artístics of Badalona, and at the University of Barcelona. A key artist of European Neo-figuration, he worked mostly as a painter, although he also produced some sculptures and even entered the field of performance on occasions. Over the years, Uclés created a clearly identifiable pictorial universe. Keeping himself away from the usual art market circles, and with a critical personality, he painted figures with white faces, resembling self-portraits at times, on very dark backgrounds. A poignant and sarcastic portrayal of a rotten society, his work invokes magic realities and threatening worlds that anticipate ecological issues, with references to popular erotic iconography and a heterodox world. His is an ironic and poetic, imaginative and esoteric, exotic and disturbing world inhabited by anthropomorphic and ethereal beings who live in a cosmic and often marginal space, surrounded by constellations.

Following his first exhibition in the Museu de Badalona in 1972, Uclés was included in major group exhibitions such as Seny i Rauxa at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1978, about Catalan avant-garde art; and Europa '79, in Stuttgart, 1979, an exhibition that marked the return to painting in the 1980s. His solo exhibitions include the ones presented at the Acadèmia de Belles Arts, Sabadell, 1981; Museu de Badalona, 1987; Museu de Granollers, 1987; Col·legi Oficial d'Aparelladors i Arquitectes Tècnics, Barcelona, 1989; Museu d'Art de Girona, 2001, and Museu de Badalona, 2006. He has exhibited in galleries in Milan, Basel, Brussels, Maastricht, Cannes, Montpellier, Zurich and Los Angeles. His work is included in the collections of Museu de Badalona, Museu de Granollers and MACBA, Barcelona.