Torkwase Dyson describes herself as a painter working across multiple mediums to explore the continuity between ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. Dyson’s abstract works are visual and material systems used to construct fusions of surface tension, movement, scale, real and finite space. With an emphasis on the ways black and brown bodies perceive and negotiate space as information, Dyson looks to spatial liberation strategies from historical and contemporary perspectives, seeking to uncover new understandings of the potential for more livable geographies. Dyson has participated in group exhibitions at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and California African American Museum, Los Angeles, and has had solo exhibitions and installations at Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine; Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago; Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia; and Suzanne Lemberg Usdan Gallery, Bennington College, Vermont. Dyson is represented by Pace Gallery in New York and Gray Gallery in Chicago.
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2023
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Born 1973, Chicago
Lives and works in Beacon, New York
2023
Torkwase Dyson, 'T' Space Rhinebeck, New York, NY
Torkwase Dyson: Bird and Lava, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, MO
2022
Torkwase Dyson: A Liquid Belonging, Pace Gallery, 540 West 25th Street, New York, NY
2021
Pace Live - Torkwase Dyson: Liquid A Place, Pace Gallery, Lower Ground Floor, 5 Hanover Square, London
Online: Torkwase Dyson: In Focus, Pace Gallery
Torkwase Dyson: Breathtaking: On Black Beauty and Other Necessary Indeterminacies (Spatial Test With Drawing, _001), 2021, Serpentine Pavilion, Serpentine Galleries, London
Torkwase Dyson, Hall Art Foundation, Schloss Derneburg, Germany
2020
Torkwase Dyson: Studies for Bird and Lava, Pace Gallery, 68 Park Place, East Hampton, New York, NY
Torkwase Dyson: Black Compositional Thought | 15 Paintings for the Plantationocene, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA
2019
Torkwase Dyson, I Can Drink the Distance: Plantationocene in 2 Acts, Co-presentation by Pace Live and Performa, 7th Floor, 540 West 25th Street, New York, NY
Torkwase Dyson - 1919: Black Water, Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, Columbia University, New York, NY
Torkwase Dyson: I Can Drink the Distance, The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, The Cooper Union, New York, NY
2018
Torkwase Dyson: Nautical Dusk, William D. Adams Gallery, Colby Museum of Art, Colby College, Waterville, ME
Torkwase Dyson: Scalar, Suzanne Lemerg Usdan, Bennington College, Bennington, VT
Torkwase Dyson: James Madison Dyson, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
Torkwase Dyson and the Wynter-Wells Drawing School, Graham Foundation, Chicago, IL
Torkwase Dyson: Dear Henry, Davidson Contemporary, New York, NY
Torkwase Dyson: Black Compositional Thought and the Wynter-Wells Drawing School for Environmental Justice, The Drawing Center, New York, NY
2017
Torkwase Dyson: Hidden in Plain Site: Black Paintings, Texas Tech University, College of Visual + Performing Arts, School of Art, Landmark Gallery, Lubbock, TX
2016
Torkwase Dyson: Illegal Abstraction: A Single Author, Hemphill Fine Arts 1700 L St., Washington D.C.
Torkwase Dyson: Mine Mind, Second Street Gallery, Charlottesville, VA
Torkwase Dyson: Unkeeping, Industry City Gallery/Eyebeam, New York, NY
2014
Mine: a solo exhibition by Torkwase Dyson, Clark University, Worcester, MA
2008
Torkwase Dyson: Hereinafter, Meat Market Gallery, Washington D.C.
2006
Torkwase Dyson: Ding, Bling, Splash: Hurray You’re Rich, Ty Stokes Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Torkwase Dyson: Oil and Water Don’t Mix, Ty Stokes Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2023
Liverpool Biennial 2023: uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things, various venues, Liverpool, United Kingdom
Counterpublic Triennial, St. Louis Place Park and Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Saint Louis, M
Desert X, Coachella Valley, CA
So it appears, Institute for Contemporary Art, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
Embrace the World, Passerelle Centre d'art contemporain, Brest, France
Ecologies of Elsewhere, Contemporary Arts Center, Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, OH
[action=query]: Black Arts and Black Aesthetics, Pace Gallery, New York, NY
Prendre corps au monde, Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain, Bretagne, France
2022
Boil, Toil + Trouble, organized by Art in Common, Miami, FL
Living with Ghosts, Pace Gallery, London, United Kingdom
SET IT OFF: Curated by Racquel Chevremont & Mickalene Thomas—Collectively Known as Deux Femmes Noires, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York, NY
A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, The Mississippi Museum of Art, Mississippi (co-organizer), Traveling to: Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland (co-organizer)
Ninth Street and Beyond: 70 Years of Women in Abstraction: Part II: Geometry, Hunter/Dunbar Projects, New York, NY
Lux et Veritas, NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL
2021
Hiding in Plain Sight, Pace Gallery, 540 West 25th Street, New York, NY
Bodies of Water: The 13th Shanghai Biennale - Phase 03: An Exhibition, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China
Stories of Resistance, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, MO
Ninth Street and Beyond: 70 Years of Women in Abstraction, Part I: The Gestural, Hunter Dunbar Projects, New York, NY
Climate Changing: On Artists, Institutions, and the Social Environment, Wexner Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
2020
Drawing 2020, Gladstone Gallery, New York, NY
Catalyst: Art and Social Justice, Gracie Mansion Conservancy, New York, NY
2019
Count of Three, Alexander Gray Associates, New York, NY
Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary, California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
2018
Out of Easy Reach, Gallery 400, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL
The Last Place They Thought Of, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, PA
Primary, Korn Gallery, Dorothy Young Center for the Arts, Drew University, Madison, NJ
Between the Waters, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
2017
Lack of Location is My Location, Koenig & Clinton, New York, NY
On Documentary Abstraction, Art Center South Florida, Miami, FL
35 Days, Hemphill Fine Art, Washington, D.C.
Works on Water 2017, 3LD Art & Technology Center, New York, NY
Stacked, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York, NY
Invisible Man, Maros Gallery, New York, NY
Dialogues In Drawing, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, CA
x y: An Act of Translation, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, New York, NY
The Future is Abstract, Harvey B. Gantt Center, Charlotte, NC
2016
In Conditions of Freshwater, Duke University, Center for Documentary Studies, Durham, NC
Grey Scale, PostMasters Gallery, New York, NY
The Block Party, Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York, NY
2015
A Constellation, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Eyebeam Annual Showcase, 101 Front St. Galleries Brooklyn, NY
Outside In, South Street Seaport Cultural Building, New York, NY
EAF 15: 2015 Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition, Socrates Sculpture Park, Long Island City, NY
2014
Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition, Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN
Africa Extended, United Nations, New York, NY
2011
Material Girls: Contemporary Black Women Artists, Reginald F. Lewis Museum Baltimore, MD
2010
Monastic Residency: Torkwase Dyson: Whitney Biennial 2010, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
2008
It Might Blow Up, But It Won’t Go Pop, African American Art Museum, Dallas, TX
Passin’ It On, Rush Arts Gallery New York,NY
Ephemerality, Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, Philadelphia, PA
Spectrum-ed, Flanders Art Gallery, Raleigh, NC
She’s So Articulate: Black Women Artists Reclaim the Narrative, Arlington Center for the Arts, Arlington, VA
2007
The Velocity of Gesture, or How to Build an Empire, The Dalton Gallery, Decatur, GA
2006
Magic Realism: Relationships to Caribbean and Latin Literature, Rush Arts
Torkwase Dyson
Metamorphosis 1
2023
Aquatint and spitbite aquatint with chine collé.
Saunders Waterford HP Paper.
Image size 32 1/5" x 36"
Paper size 41" x 44"
Edition of 12
Torkwase Dyson
Metamorphosis 2
2023
Aquatint and spitbite aquatint with chine collé.
Saunders Waterford HP Paper.
Image size 32 1/5" x 36"
Paper size 41" x 44"
Edition of 12
Torkwase Dyson
Metamorphosis 3
2023
Aquatint and spitbite aquatint with chine collé.
Saunders Waterford HP Paper.
Image size 32 1/5" x 36"
Paper size 41" x 44"
Edition of 12
Torkwase Dyson
Metamorphosis 4
2023
Aquatint and spitbite aquatint with chine collé.
Saunders Waterford HP Paper.
Image size 32 1/5" x 36"
Paper size 41" x 44"
Edition of 12