Artist Statement
Using photographic, installation, and performance-based strategies as resources for re-signification, Kevin Quiles Bonilla’s work explores contemporary representations of colonialism and the constant swaying, or “vaivén,” through unsolid grounds. He does so through the intersection of structures such as space, language, history, and politics, with a body like his transiting between Puerto Rico (the colony) and the United States (the “mainland”).
He reframes Puerto Rican and Caribbean imagery that engages with imperialism, the tourism economy, and idealized notions of rest—particularly questioning who is allowed to rest and who is required to facilitate that rest. Ultimately, his work seeks to unearth the construction of a historic heritage, using his body as the container, colonized by multiple structures of power.
Through an interdisciplinary practice, he questions the amalgamation of outcomes that arise through his lived experience as a Puerto Rican, as a diasporic migrant, as a queer person, and as a person with a disability. These intersections place him at a threshold, which mirrors Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States. As a result the work leaps between the collective and the personal—the macro and the micro, as one inherently informs the other.
Biography
Kevin Quiles Bonilla (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Through photography, performance, and installation, his works explore ideas around power, colonialism, and history with his identity as context.
He received a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Puerto Rico (2015) and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design (2018). He has presented his work at the Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, Lincoln Center, and Ford Foundation.
Recent solo shows include Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT (2021), Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center, Bronx, NY (2022), and Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York (2024). His first public artwork, For centuries, and still…(anticipated completion), made in collaboration with artist Zaq Landsberg, was presented through NYC Parks in 2022.
He has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Arts + Disability Residency (2018-2019); LMCC Workspace Residency (2019-2020); Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program (2022-2023); NYLAAT Residency Program (2023); Monira Foundation Residency (2024) and The Art Center at Governors Island (2024) and a Fellow at En Foco Inc Photography Fellowship (2021); EmergeNYC (2021); Art Matters Artist2Artist Fellowship (2023) and the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Kahn|Mason SIP Fellowship (2024).
His work has been featured in Hyperallergic, The Washington Post, BOMB Magazine, and The Guardian.
He lives and works between New York and Puerto Rico.
