Civilized Sissification Drawing

David Rios Ferreira creates large-scale drawings that merge the aesthetic line quality of coloring books, animation stills, 18th century newspaper etchings and paintings to produce eerily alluring abstract scenes on Mylar and paper. In his drawings, clusters of lines are stockpiled and dominate space. Dense compositions form hybrid landscapes for reinterpreted figures such as Pinocchio, Astro Boy and Peter Pan to play out imagined histories. Ferreira threads these various sources in order to draw together the emotional, sexual, and psychological complexities inherent in historical narrative. He is interested in how the past informs the present and the idea that the two can exist on the same plain. Issues of power found in the colonial history, especially that of the U.S. and its territories in which they subjected school children to deculturlization practices are at root of David Rios Ferreira work. Rios Ferreira has exhibited in galleries and museums in the US and abroad, including CoCA Seattle, Nemeth Art Center Minnesota and Kunstraum Richard Sorge Gallery, Berlin. He has held residencies at the Lower East Side Printshop and the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, and was named Emerge 11 Artist Fellow by Aljira: a center for contemporary art. He was awarded the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship for his works on paper and most recently he was named Innovative Cultural Advocacy Fellow by the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute. Recent exhibitions include I put this moment … here. I put this moment … here. I put this moment … over here at Aljira, Read Between the Lines at the Lower East Side Printshop, and Other Worlds at Skylight Gallery. David Rios Ferreira was born in Bronx, NY and received his BFA at The Cooper Union.