Boris Torres
Bio/CV: Boris Torres (b. 1976, Ecuador) received his MFA in Fine Art from Brooklyn College and his BA from Parsons School of Design. A 2019 recipient of the Leslie Lohman Museum Fellowship, as well as an Artist Resident at Virginia Center for the Arts, Torres’s work has been part of numerous museum and group shows, including the Bronx Museum of Art, Museo Muñoz Marino, La Petite Mort Gallery, Tacoma Art Museum, Leslie-Lohman Museum, Prinz Eisenherz,Bowman Gallery and Cheim & Read. His work has also been featured in Hyperallergic, The New York Times, Out Magazine and in films and television including Keep the Lights On, Tu Me Manques, Love Is Strange, American Horror Story and All the Murders in the Building.
Artist Statement: I was born in a small city in Ecuador and grew up working class, without artistic role models or exposure to art except for a few sexy paintings I stared at and escaped into during mass in church. Just before adolescence, my mother and I came to the U.S. for a better life. In the New York City public schools, I felt out of place academically, but I was lucky to cross paths with teachers who saw artistic talent in me and encouraged me to pursue it. In those art classes, I developed an artistic practice that led me to attend La Guardia High School where I excelled. I’m a New York artist through and through. Still, I felt like an outsider because it was the early 90s, and I was gay, an immigrant, and an artist who created queer images- taboos- during a time of deep homophobia and death from AIDS. But below the surface in Manhattan, on the piers and in the clubs, I found a community of people, immigrants, artists, gay and trans people, who mirrored my experience. In those worlds, I was given license to make the kind of work that still today feels both forbidden and exciting for me. Over the years of art-making, my work has come to encompass media as diverse as collage, painting, watercolor and life portraiture. I look to each medium for challenges and opportunities and discovery. My heroes are artists who never separated their work from their lives, such as Alice Neel, Joe Brainard and Patrick Angus. Their work inspires me, as does sex, cinema, photography, New York City and the people around me. Through many forms and subjects, I aspire to unearth the complexities of sexuality, gender and race through images that provoke, challenge and embrace.
Selected Solo Exhibitions:
2023 Carnival of Souls: Kates-Ferri Projects, New York, NY 2020 Rebels I Know, Chashama, New York, NY
2019 Rebels I know, Meantine.Co, Brooklyn, NY, Paper Dolls, Shag, New York, NY
2018 Drawings, Paintings and Collages, Bowman Gallery, Beverly Hills CA
2016 Guys & Dolls, Beige, Memphis, TN
2014 Boris Torres-Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Prinz, Eisenherz, Berlin, Germany
2012 Midnite, La Petite Mort Gallery, Ottawa, Canada, En Carne Viva, La Naranjilla Mecánica, Quito, Ecuador 2010 Boris Torres: Recent Paintings, The Gay & Lesbian Center, New York, NY
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2023 Inside Out: Meca Art Fair, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Marida: Museo Munos Marino, Quinto, Ecuador 2022 Some People: Cheiman & Read, New York, NY, True Stories: Untitled Art Space, New York, NY, X Marks the Spot: DeMuro Das, New York, NY, Homecoming: Kates-Ferri Projects, New York, NY 2021 QUE(E)RY, LatchKey Gallery, New York, NY, Dissolution, Leslie-lohman Museum, New York, NY, Identity Speaks: LGBTQ+ Art and Community, Suny Empire State College, NY, New Normal, Payne Gallery, Bethlehem, PA
2020 Circus of Books: Blowout, Fierman, New York, NY, A Page From My Intimate Journal, Parker Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, When We First Arrived, The Corner, Washington, D.C., Summon Art, Sheppard Mullin, New York, NY
2019 Friends and Family, Peter Mendenhall Gallery, Pasadena, CA Male Gaze, Leslie-lohman Museum, New York, NY 2018 Cast Of Characters, The LGBT Center, New York, NY Transindiciplinar, Museo Universitario MUCE, Quito, Ecuador El Orden Natural De Las Cosas, Casa De La Cultura, Quito, Ecuador
2017 Found, Leslie-lohman Museum, New York, NY, Art Aids America, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA, Bronx Museum, New York, NY, Alphawood Gallery, Chicago, IL.
2015 Twice Bitten, Honey Ramka, Brooklyn, NY, Rethink Environment, Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA Bugger The $phinx, Honey Ramka, Brooklyn, NY
2013 Wild Moon, Court Tree, Brooklyn, NY, Round Hole Square Peg, Smart Colthes Gallery, New York, NY Infidels, Launch F18, New York, NY
2012 The Infidels, La Petite Mort Gallery, Ottawa, Canada Self-Consciousness: Curated by Peter Doig and Hilton, Als, Gordon Veneklasen Michael Werner Gallery, Berlin, Germany, Cluster Bomb, Bowery Poetry Club, New York, NY, The Pop Up Museum of Queer History, Leslie Lohman Art Foundation, New York, NY
Selected Publications:
2019 Art and Queer Culture, edited by Catherine Lord and Richard Meyer, Phaidon Press, April.
2016 Art Aids America, by Jonathan Katz and Rock Hushka, University of Washington Press, October.
2014 Leveling the Field, by R. Kurt Osenlund, Out Magazine, July.
2012 Gorgeous Gallery, by David Leddick, The Tell All, by Jerry Portwood, Out Magazine, Sept. Revista Vanguardia, text by Oscar Molina, Quito, Ecuador Revista Katalizador, text by Pablo Yang, Quito, Ecuador Revista Max, Vol.1, text by Fredy Alfaro, Quito Ecuador
Artist Residencies and Selected Honors: 2021 Artist in Residency at Kate-Ferri Projects, Leslie-Lohman Museum Queer Artist Fellow 2019 Graduate Investment Program Research Grant 2012 Bernard Horlick Memorial Scholarship, Brooklyn College Graduate Teaching Fellowship Award 2011 Wolff-Ravenal Travel Grant Award
Selected Collections: Amir Shariat Collection, John Cheim Collection, Beth Rudin DeWoody, The Lesley Lohman Museum
Press: Hyperallergic, Plataform De Arte Contemporaneo, New York Times, T-Magazine, NYTimes
Social: @boristorres