Andrea Pérez Bessin

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Reverence, ritual, and the queer body as holy are the common threads that run through these works. My work aims to create a visual language around queer and non-binary bodies through syncretic explorations of science, alchemy, Christian iconography, queerness, my immediate surroundings, and influences derived from Puerto Rican culture. I forge anthropomorphic amalgams of plants and animals that honor the self-fashioning present in queer bodies and the wide spectrum of gender and sex present in the natural world. Through my practice I refute the false binary and imposed heteronormativity that place queer existence against nature. 

Andrea Pérez Bessin is a printmaker and installation artist whose work focuses on syncretic amalgams of plants and humans that celebrate gender variance present in the natural world. They received their MFA in Studio art from the University of Connecticut, a BFA in Studio Art from Rhode Island College and a BA in Biology from Brown University. Their practice has been sustained through residencies and grants including Oak Spring Garden Foundation, The Peter Bullough Foundation, The Rhode Island Foundation, Millay Arts, Wood/Raith Gender Identity Living Trust, Marks Family Endowment in the Arts and the Rhode Island State Council of the Arts Fellowship in Printmaking. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Andrea lives and works in Newport, Rhode Island.