BFA Fine Arts presents a visiting artist lecture with Kenny Rivero (BFA 2010 Fine Arts).
Kenny Rivero’s (b. 1981, New York) work, which spans paintings, collage, drawings and sculpture, explores the complexity of identity through narrative images, language and symbolism. His aim is to deconstruct the histories and identities he has been raised to understand as absolute and to re-engineer them into new wholes, with new functions. His creative process allows him to explore what he perceives as the broken narrative of Dominican American identity, socio-geographic solidarity, familial expectations, race and gender roles. Rivero cites the hybrid qualities of salsa, hip-hop, house music, jazz and merengue, as well as Vodun and Santeria, which were present in his daily life growing up-as core influences on his decision-making in the studio. Kenny Rivero’s work is represented in notable public collections including The Baltimore Museum of Art; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; El Museo del Barrio, New York. NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Collection of Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; and Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL.