Artist David Rios Ferreira

David Rios Ferreira has exhibited in galleries and museums across the US and internationally. His solo exhibitions include Morgan Lehman Gallery (NY), Wave Hill (Bronx), the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (VT), and the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Salt Lake City).

In New York, he has held residencies at the Lower East Side Printshop and Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts and has participated in professional development programs such as the Bronx Museum’s Artist in the Marketplace (AIM).

Public art commissions include Meta Open Arts, Art at Amtrak, Percent for Art, and MTA Art & Design. Awards include a New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship, a National Association of Latino Arts & Culture Fund grant, and nominations for the United States Artists Award and the Joan Mitchell Fellowship.

David Rios Ferreira earned a BFA from The Cooper Union and currently lives and works in New York City and Jersey City, NJ.

"My abstract drawings, sculptures, and installations delve into the past by merging historical etchings of colonial narratives and political cartoons depicting American imperialism with elements from children's coloring books and pop culture. I deconstruct and reassemble these sources to form temporal beings and hybrid landscapes. These figures act as vessels for imagined histories, reflecting how the body interprets and transforms historical memory. This exploration is rooted in my identity as a Puerto Rican and shaped by the U.S. government's deculturalization efforts in Puerto Rico, which persisted until the mid-1950s—strategies my parents remember as nursery rhymes and school pledges. Additionally, I draw from the experiences of my nephews on the autism spectrum, who use cartoons as a communicative tool, often imitating dialogue from their favorite films to engage with the world around them. The ability of my nephews to remix existing material to navigate their reality inspires my work. This practice echoes the Caribbean and West African traditions of crafting carnival costumes and masks from recycled fragments. Everyday objects become ingredients for structures of power, spiritual tradition, and tools for addressing social and political issues. These different yet structurally aligned practices serve as inspiration for my work. Coloring books and animation, historical references, and other appropriated images are the "found objects" I use to construct new identities to explore social and political themes. By engaging in a process of "temporal drag," I aim to uncover the past while envisioning a path toward the future. My temporal beings exist as bridges across time and space, embodying and reshaping historical memory."

Tell us a little about yourself (where you are from) and your background in the arts.

I’m a native New Yorker and first-generation mainland Puerto Rican— a.k.a Nuyorican. I come from a large family, the youngest of five siblings. I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. My parents and siblings remind me that I was making recognizable images as young as three years old. We grew up in the South Bronx and later in Queens, which feels especially meaningful to reflect on now, having recently unveiled a public artwork at the New York Public Library in the South Bronx. I attended the High School of Art and Design in Midtown Manhattan and went on to study Fine Arts at The Cooper Union.

Today, I have a family of my own—my husband and daughter are a big part of everything I’ve been able to achieve. We have family studio days, and my five year old daughter especially enjoys coming with me on weekends. Lately, as she’s become more independent in her own artmaking, I’ve been able to get some studio time in alongside her. I’ve balanced an art career with a museum career for many years and now work in education at The Museum of Modern Art—just blocks from where I went to high school.

My work, both in the studio and in the museum, consistently returns to the importance of education in shaping our cultural identities—how we perceive ourselves, how we are perceived and how we choose to present ourselves in the world—while recognizing the importance of understanding where we come from to navigate where we are going.

What kind of work are you currently making?

After a rewarding few years working on site-specific public artworks, I’ve been focusing on creating a new body of work that reconnects me to my studio practice—one centered on unearthing personal and historical narratives. In this new work, I’m exploring the elemental spaces where forms and figures reside: water and the ocean, earth and soil, and the cosmic. So far, this has taken shape as a series of painted and layered drawings on wood panel, mylar, and paper, along with a return to working in graphite.

What is a day like in the studio for you?

A day in the studio is usually an evening. I’m in the studio a few nights a week after work, and sometimes on weekends—when my five-year-old lets me, and often joins me. Most evenings, I come in ready to hit the ground running.

My drawings and mixed-media works involve layering paint through masks and one-use stencils that I cut from adhesive vinyl. Because the work requires drying time between layers, I’m usually working on multiple pieces at once—painting on one while sketching or drawing on another.

The more frantic nights are when I’m starting something new. That’s when I try to push myself—changing the surface, experimenting with a new way of layering. That beginning phase is always a little scary, because I haven’t found the rhythm yet and I only have a limited amount of time before I need to head home. I often leave wondering if I’ve done enough—but that uncertainty is also part of what pulls me back the next time.

What are you looking at right now and/or reading?

I always love a good art catalogue, especially survey-style books that bring multiple artists into conversation. One I return to frequently is Drawing Now: Eight Propositions. I saw that exhibition while I was still in school, and many of the artists featured there have continued to shape my practice.

I’ve also been revisiting Basquiat and diving deeper into Wifredo Lam’s work. That said, the art that actually sends me back into the studio — is film and dance. Films like "Interstellar," "Inception," and "Pirates of the Caribbean" are often playing in the background while I work, while I always come to "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind", "West Side Story", "Beasts of the Southern Wild" for inspiration.

Live dance, especially contemporary choreography, has a particular impact on me. Choreographers like Sonya Tayeh, Matthew Bourne, Iker Karrera, and Hervé Koubi inspire me deeply. I can’t fully explain it, but after experiencing powerful choreography, I often feel a physical urgency to make work.

Where can we find more of your work? (ex. website/insta/gallery/upcoming shows)

Website: www.davidriosart.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidriosart/

You can find my work in several public spaces across New York City. At the 7th Avenue Station on the F and G lines in Brooklyn, I created a series of twelve mosaic artworks and a passageway installation featuring amalgamations of abstract and representational images of turtles, drawing from a variety of interpretations found in scientific journals and Indigenous cultures. In the South Bronx, you can visit the Hunts Point Library to see two large-scale mural works installed on metal.