Torkwase Dyson
Torkwase Dyson is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York, United States. Her work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Corcoran College of Art and Design, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. She describes the themes of her work as "architecture, infrastructure, environmental justice, and abstract drawing." In 1999 she received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and her MFA from Yale School of Art in painting/printmaking in 2003. In 2016, Dyson was elected to the board of the Architectural League of New York as Vice President of Visual Arts. In 2017, she was on the faculty of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She is a visiting critic at Yale School of Art.
Projects
Studio South Zero
Studio South Zero is a solar-powered, mobil art studio Dyson uses in her installations.Conditions of Fresh Water
Conditions of Fresh Water is a project about "black Southern geography and the struggle for environmental justice."The Wynter-Wells Drawing School for Environmental Justice
The 2018 Wynter-Wells Drawing School for Environmental Justice, named for Jamaican writer Sylvia Wynter and American civil rights leader Ida B. Wells, is a two-week series of classes, discussions, and experiments held at the Drawing Center.The Wynter-Wells School
In 2018, The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Arts presented an exhibition of Dyson's work building off of her two-week residency at the Drawing Center, Winter Term. The exhibition consisted of new site-specific drawings and a series of programming under the title The Wynter-Wells Drawing School for Environmental Liberation, as part of Dyson's pedagogical approach to art-making, consisting of a series of workshops, lectures, and an open studio where Dyson would actively produce and alter the work on view in front of the public.Exhibitions
Solo
2018
- Graham Foundation, Wynter-Wells School, May 3–July 14
- Davidson Gallery, New York, NY, Dear Henry, March 15–May 5
- The Drawing Center, New York, NY, Black Compositional Thought and the Wynter-Well Drawing School for Environmental Justice, February 24–March 11
2017
- Texas Tech University, Landmark Gallery, Lubbock, TX, Hidden in Plain Site: Black Paintings
2016
- Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA, Mine Mind, May 27–June 23
- Eyebeam, Brooklyn, NY, Unkeeping, March 9–April 12
- Hemphill Fine Arts, Washington DC, Illegal Abstraction, October 27, 2016 – January 27, 2017
2014
- Clark University, Schiltkamp Gallery, Worcester, MA Mine: Painting and Drawing October 1–October 31
2008
- Meat Market Gallery, Washington DC, Hereinafter
- Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, 31 Gallery, Washington, DC, The Rhymes Cost But the Guck is for Free
Select group
2018
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, Between the Waters, March 18–
2017
- ArtCenter / South Florida, Miami FL, On Documentary Abstraction, September 30, 2017 – January 2, 2018
- Harvey B. Gantt Center, Charlotte NC, The Future is Abstract, January 28–July 8
- Koenig & Clinton, Brooklyn, NY, Lack of Location is My Location, November 3, 2017 – January 14, 2018
- Hemphill Fine Art, Washington, DC, 35 Days, June 24–August 11
- 3LD Art & Technology Center, New York, NY, Works on Water, June 5–30
- Martos Gallery, New York, NY, Invisible Man, May 3–June 24
- Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY, Stack, May 11–June 17
- Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, CA, Dialogues, On Drawing, March 16–May 23
- Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Brooklyn, NY, x ≈ y: An Act of Translation
2016
- Duke University, Center for Documentary Studies, Durham NC, In Conditions of Freshwater, March 2–June 10
- PostMasters Gallery, New York, NY, Grey Scale, June 24–August 16
- Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York, NY, The Block Party, July 14 – August
2015
- Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, A Constellation, November 12, 2015 – March 6, 2016
- Eyebeam, 101 Front St. Galleries, Brooklyn, NY, Annual Showcase, January 29–February 21
- South Street Seaport Cultural Building, New York, NY, Outside In, October 2–November 13
- Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY, EAF 15: 2015 Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition, September 27, 2015 – March 16, 2016
2014
- Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN, Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition
- United Nations, New York, NY, Africa Extended
2011
- Reginald F. Lewis Museum, Baltimore, MD, Material Girls: Contemporary Black Women Artists, February 12–October 16
2010
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, 2010 Whitney Biennial Monastic Residency, May7–May 9
- Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia, PA, Ephemerality, January 12–April 12
2008
- Flanders Art Gallery, Raleigh, NC, Spectrum-ed, June 1–July 1
- Arlington Center for the Arts, Arlington, VA, She's So Articulate
- African American Museum, Dallas, TX, It Might Blow Up, But It Won't Go Pop
Select lectures and panels
2018
- Graham Foundation, Chicago, IL, Christina Sharpe and Torkwase Dyson in Conversation, June 14
- Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, Race, Space, and Abstraction in the American South, February 17
- Drawing Center, New York, NY, Wynter-Wells Drawing School for Environmental Justice Panel Discussion, March 1
2017
- Duke University, Durham, NC, In Conditions of Fresh Water, March 20
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, Artists on Artworks series, Three Conditions of Space, March 24
- The New School, New York, NY, Visiting Artist Lecture Series, April 26
- Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME, Barbara Lee Lecture Series, June 23
- ArtCenter / South Florida, Miami FL, On Documentary Abstraction, August 30
- Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Hyper Shape, December 6
- Design Miami, Miami, FL, Concept, Abstraction, Blackness, December 8
2016
- Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, The Artist's Voice, February 4
- Eyebeam, New York, NY, Black Spatial Matters, April 9
- University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, Visual Artists and Scholars Committee, Illegal Abstraction A Single Author, October 6
- Hunter College, New York, NY, On Painting, October 19
- Drawing Center, New York, NY, Open Session 9: Cartography of Ghosts, December 15
2015
- University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, Values of Color, February 20
2014
- Reed College, Portland, OR, Nothing Disappears: Site/Environment/Installation and the Re-alignments Happening in My Imagination, April 17
- Brown University, Brown International Advanced Research Institutes Connections and Flows: Water, Energy and Digital Information in the Global South, Studio South Zero: Looking at Urban Ecological Aesthetics, June 19