Jonathan Torres
Puerto Rico
9 Works exhibited on Kooness
Represented by
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Works by Jonathan Torres
Jonathan Torres was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1983, received his BFA in 2009 from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas, San Juan, and his MFA from Brooklyn College in 2012 under the mentorship of Vito Acconci. Currently Torres is a resident at Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program (NY, 2022 -23). Nominee of the Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, Torres was selected for the Biennale Mercosul (Brazil 2016), won the Charles G. Shaw Award (NY, 2012) and the Arcos Dorados Award (Argentina, 2011). Torres has been exhibiting in solo and group shows between New York and Puerto Rico for over ten years. His work has been featured in Flash Art, Beautiful/Decay, and Art Observed, among other publications. Torres lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and his work belongs to important collections such as the Museum of Fine Art, Boston and Museo Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico.
Artist Statement
I’m a Puerto Rican artist from San Juan and now based in Brooklyn, NY. Working with paintings, sculptures and video, a re-occurring feature in my works is the indication of otherworldliness as well as living in diaspora. Many of my paintings depict distorted faces; the figures undergo or have completed metamorphosis – they are a recognizable character, yet transformed to a new persona. With this, I reflect on my own identity as a Puerto Rican and someone who left the island, but also on living in a rough city in New York. In both places, beauty and happiness exist, but the absurdity and the anxiety is present, both personally and politically. In my works I want the viewer to be absorbed into this world intertwining anxiety and beauty. The vulnerable, ugly figures resembling both monsters and humans are sculpted as much as they’re painted. My sculptures are as well an extension of the paintings being complemented by their surroundings. My process to depict the bizarre paradises is created by emphasizing a materialistic ritual that explores the variation of the materials used, such as wax, oil skin, fiber fill, silicone, fabrics, faux hair, lace, feathers, pigmented surfaces in acrylic and oil. Even though depicting something recognizable, abstract expressionism is present, with elements of it shown in my works through emotional intensity that was characteristic to the movement. I use my own personal experiences and memories and trauma, at the same time inherently commenting on the collective and the socio-political climate.