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.