about 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.
gallery representation KATES-FERRI PROJECTS, NY, NY
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2024te quiero: Curated by bernardo mosqueira, zona maco, cd, MX 2023Carnival of souls, KATES-FERRI PROJECTS, NY, NY 2020Rebels I Know, Chashama, NY, NY 2019Rebeldes, Meantime Co., Brooklyn, NY Paper Dolls, Shag, Brooklyn, NY 2018 Drawings, Collages and Paintings, Bowman Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA 2016Guys & 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 2024 hearts on fire, soho project space, NY, NY 2023 Inside Outside, Meca Art fair, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Mirada, Museo Muños Marino, Quito, Ecuador2022 SOme people, Cheim & Read, New York, NY True Stories, UNTITLED 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 2020circus of books: blowout, fierman, new york, ny A Page From my Intimate Journal, Parker gallery, La, ca Summon art, Sheppard mulliN, new york, NY when we fiRst arRived, the corner, washington, dc 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 Clothes 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
EDUCATION 2010 MFA, Brooklyn College of New York, NY 2008 MA, City College of New York, NY, 2000 BFA, Parsons School of Design, New York, NY
SELECTED HONORS Artist in residence at Kates-Ferri Projects, 2021 Leslie-Lohman Museum Queer Artist Fellow, 2019 Graduate Investment Program Research Grant, 2011 Bernard Horlick Memorial Scholarship, 2011 Brooklyn College Graduate Teaching Fellowship Award, 2010 Wolff-Ravenal Travel Grant Award, 2009
COLLECTIONS Amir Shariat Collection Beth Rudin Dewoody collection John Cheim Collection The Leslie Lohman Museum
TEACHING EXPERIENCE Brooklyn College, Adjunct Professor Humanities Prep High School
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. Gorgeous Gallery, by David Leddick 2012 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