Kenny Rivero's paintings, collages, drawings and sculptures explore the complexity of identity through narrative images, language, and symbolism. His creative process deconstructs and reimagines what he perceives as the broken narrative of Dominican-American identity, socio-geographic solidarity, familial expectations, race, and gender roles. Born and raised in Manhattan's Washington Heights neighborhood, he is represented by Charles Moffett Gallery, and has work in the public collections of The Studio Museum in Harlem; El Museo del Barrio; The Whitney Museum of American Art; Collection of Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Charged with fantastic symbolism, Walk Wit Me channels Rivero's ongoing ruminations on death—a theme that traces back to his personal upbringing in a multi-religious household guided by Catholic, Vodun, and Santeria traditions. Within the work, a ghost and a suited, one-eyed figure, whose head is shrouded in a black cloth, travel down an empty sidewalk that evokes an urban landscape. Though the scene may seem morose or even menacing at first glance, the artist animates his leading male character with a bodily gesture that implicates the joy and vibrancy to be found in life.
Kenny Rivero
Walk Wit Me, 2021
18 x 18 inches
Archival pigment print
Limited Edition of 20 with 4AP
Signed and numbered by the artist
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