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A photo of artist Kevin Quiles Bonilla. They are seated at a desk in their studio. He wears glasses and looks into the camera with a neutral expression.

Kevin Quiles Bonilla

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What power impacts us, in public and in private? What histories frame us? And what culture claims or rejects us? Using photography and performance-based strategies as resources for re-signification, my current work explores contemporary representations of colonialism, and the constant transits through unsolid grounds. I do so through the intersection of structures such as space, language, history and politics, with a body like mine transiting between Puerto Rico (the colony) and the United States (the mainland). Ultimately, my work seeks to unearth and acknowledge the construction of a queer, historic heritage, using my body as the container, colonized by multiple structures of power. Through an interdisciplinary practice, I question the amalgamation of outcomes that arise through my lived experience as a Puerto Rican, as a diasporic migrant, as a queer person, and as a person with a disability.

Kevin Quiles Bonilla (b. 1992) is an interdisciplinary artist born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He received a BA in Fine Arts – Photography from the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras (2015) and an MFA in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design in New York (2018). His work has been presented in Puerto Rico, The United States, Mexico, China, Belgium, Greece and Japan. He’s the recipient of an Emerging Artist Award from The John F. Kennedy Center (2017). He has presented his work at The Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, The John F. Kennedy Center and The Lincoln Center. He has been an Artist in Residence and Fellow at the Arts + Disability Residency (2018-2019), Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Queer Performance Residency (2019), LMCC’s Workspace Residency (2019-2020), En Foco Inc Photography Fellowship (2021) and Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program (2022-2023). He explores ideas around power, colonialism, and history with his identity as context. He lives and works between Puerto Rico and New York.

Featured Artwork

Image of Kevin Quiles Bonilla wearing a blue hurricane tarp over their head and standing in a lush tropical landscape.
Kevin Quiles Bonilla. Carryover (Blue Tarp in Vega Alta), 2019. Digital photograph/C-print, 40 x 60 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
The work depicts the 13-foot tall guard tower (or garita in Spanish) from the colonial fortresses in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the style of a New York construction site. The piece is at a 15-degree tilt, as though it is slowly sinking into the wave-like cobblestones of the park. Next to the work, is Growth, 1985 by Jorge Luis Rodríguez, a permanent sculpture and the first ‘Percent for Art’ commission in New York.
Kevin Quiles Bonilla. For Centuries, and Still...(Anticipated Completion), [collaboration with Zaq Landsberg], 2022. Site-specific installation in Harlem Art Park 174 .5 x 335.75 x 168 inches. Photo documentation by Ariana Sarwari.
Beach towels in a room staged like a beach. Each towel has a different print which includes a border and a floral accent. There are beach chairs and accessories.
Kevin Quiles Bonilla. A Tropic Squall Blew in , While You Dried in the Sand, 2022. Custom print on three (3) beach towels, custom prints on two (2) beach sling chairs, beach paraphernalia, portable radio, hurricane warning flags, vinyl, sand, sound, variable dimensions. Image courtesy of the artist.

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