About

BORIS TORRES
info@boristorres.com
Born in Ecuador, 1976. Lives and works in New York City.

I was born in a small city in Ecuador and grew up working class, without artistic role models or much exposure to art, except for a few sexy paintings I stared at and escaped into during Mass at church. Just before adolescence, my mother and I came to the U.S. in search of a better life. In 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 eventually led me to LaGuardia High School, where I excelled.
I’m a New York artist through and through. Still, I often felt like an outsider. It was the early ’90s, and I was gay, an immigrant, and an artist making queer images, taboo at a time of deep homophobia and the devastation of AIDS. But beneath the surface of Manhattan, on the piers and in the clubs, I found a community of immigrants, artists, gay and trans people who mirrored my own experience. In those worlds, I was given license to make the kind of work that, even today, feels both forbidden and exciting to me.
Over the years, my work has come to encompass media as diverse as collage, painting, watercolor, and portraiture from life. I look to each medium for its challenges, possibilities, and discoveries. My heroes are artists who did not separate their work from their lives, such as Alice Neel, Joe Brainard, and Patrick Angus. Their work inspires me, as do sex, cinema, photography, New York City, and the people around me. Across different forms and subjects, I continue to follow what draws me: desire, identity, memory, and the things an image can reveal, conceal, or leave unresolved.

gallery representation KATES-FERRI PROJECTS, NY, NY

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2026
Saturdays, Richard Koh Fine Art, Singapore
People I Know, Anne Reid ’72 Gallery, Princeton, NJ
2025
Poems, Kates-Ferri Projects, New York, NY
People Pleaser, SPARK, Vienna, Austria
2024
Te Quiero, Curated by Bernardo Mosqueira, ZONA MACO, Mexico City, Mexico
2023
Carnival of Souls, Kates-Ferri Projects, New York, NY
2020
Rebels I Know, Chashama, New York, NY
2019
Rebeldes, 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
2026
Lighthouses of the Earth, Wilhelmina’s, Hydra, Greece
Embodied Narratives, Kates-Ferri Projects, New York, NY
Eros Rising, CLAMP, New York, NY
2024
Sharp Cuts: Queer Collage, CLAMP, New York, NY
Folk Modern Fire, Monya Rowe, New York, NY
Part Two, Company Gallery, New York, NY
Solistico, Curated by Eduardo Carrera R., Kates-Ferri Projects, New York, NY
Hearts on Fire, Soho Project Space, New York, NY2023
Mirada, Museo Muñoz Mariño, Quito, Ecuador
Inside Outside, MECA, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
2022
Some People, Cheim & Read, New York, NY
Home Coming, Kates-Ferri Projects, New York, NY
True Stories, Untitled Space, New York, NY
X Marks the Spot, Demuro Das, 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, 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 of the Arts, New
York, NY; Alphawood Gallery, Chicago, IL.
2015
Twice Bitten, Honey Ramka, Brooklyn, NY
Rethink Environment, Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA
2013
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
The Pop-Up Museum of Queer History, Leslie-Lohman Art Foundation, New York, NY

AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
2026 Moulin à Nef Artist Residency, Auvillar, France
2022 Artist-in-Residence, Kates-Ferri Projects, New York, NY
2019 Leslie-Lohman Museum Queer Artist Fellow
2010 Wolff-Ravenal Travel Grant Award

COLLECTIONS
National Museum of Ecuador, Permanent Collection
Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection
John Cheim Collection
Amir Shariat Collection
Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art

EDUCATION
2011 MFA, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY
2008 MA, City College of New York, New York, NY
2000 BFA, Parsons School of Design, New York, NY

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS & PRESS
2026
Buffalo Zine, No. 22, SS26
“On the Art of Intimacy,” Evie Glenn, METAL Magazine
“A Substantial Conversation with Boris Torres,” Uzomah Ugwu, Arte Realizzata
2022
“Artist in Residence,” Crush Fanzine
2020
“Queer Family Portraits,” Dessane Lopez Cassell, Hyperallergic
2019
Art and Queer Culture, edited by Catherine Lord and Richard Meyer, Phaidon Press
2016
Art AIDS America, Jonathan Katz and Rock Hushka, University of Washington Press
2014
“Leveling the Field,” R. Kurt Osenlund, Out Magazine
2012
Gorgeous Gallery, David Leddick
“The Tell All,” Jerry Portwood, Out Magazine
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

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Brooklyn College, Adjunct Professor
Humanities Prep High School, Art Teacher