Biography
Working in multiple mediums, Torkwase Dyson describes herself as a painter whose forms address the continuity of ecology, geography, infrastructure and architecture. She merges site and built environments, nature and culture under the rubric of environmentalism, investigating connections to imagination, materiality, geography and belonging.
Dyson’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2018); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2018); Colby College, Waterville, US (2018); Bennington College, Bennington, US (2018); The Drawing Center, New York (2018); ArtCenter South Florida, Miami (2017); 3LD Art & Technology Center, New York (2017); Texas Tech University, Lubbock, US (2017); Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, US (2016); Duke University, Durham, US (2016); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2015); Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia (2010) and African American Art Museum, Dallas, US (2008), among others.
Dyson has been appointed as the Charles Gwathmey Chair in Art and Architecture at the Cooper Union, New York (2019) and was named an inaugural Fellow of the Graham Foundation Fellowship program, Chicago (2018) and Fall 2018 Visiting Artist, Lunder Institute, Colby College, Waterville. She was also awarded a Painters & Sculptors grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York (2016) and a Visiting Artist grant to the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University (2016). She has participated in residencies at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Brodsky Center Residency and Visiting Artist Program, New Brunswick, US (2017); LMCC Art Center and Governor's Island, New York (2016) and The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, US (2016).
Dyson is Vice President of Visual Art for the Board of Directors of the Architecture League of New York (2018–2019). She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University (1999) and a Master of Fine Arts in painting and printmaking from Yale University School of Art (2003).
Born in 1970 in Chicago, Dyson currently lives and works Newburgh, New York.
SAF participation:
Sharjah Biennial 14
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Sharjah Biennial 14
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In works of formal and conceptual rigour, Torkwase Dyson explores the language of spatial constructs as demarcations of both confinement and expression.