BIOGRAPHY
Torkwase Dyson describes herself as a painter working across multiple mediums to explore the continuity between ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. She works in in painting, drawing, and sculpture, and her abstract works examine human geography and the history of Black spatial liberation strategies, often grappling with the ways in which space is perceived, imagined and negotiated particularly by black and brown bodies. Throughout her work and research, Dyson confronts issues of environmental liberation and envisions a path toward a more equitable future. Her work was included in the Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better than the Real Thing, and was the focus of solo exhibitions at ‘T’ Space Rhinebeck, New York, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, and the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Dyson studied sociology and social work at Tougaloo College, Mississippi, and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Yale School of Art.
COURSES TAUGHT
On February 28, Dyson will teach an iteration of The Wynter-Wells Drawing School. The Wynter-Wells Drawing School is a roving drawing school focuses on the relationship between architecture, infrastructure and water. At UC Davis, the seminar approaches drawing as an embodies activity that explored environmental conditions under the formal conditions of abstraction and the poetics of movement. Through the lens of the plantationcene, the seminar will evoke the critical quotidian of our ritual lives and move into the networks that define our freedoms in this climate crisis. This will be a mental and physical project in environmental pedagogy concerned with pulling out sensations from our subconscious to explore, reinforce and recover information about our humanity. The seminar is open to advanced undergraduate art studio majors and graduate students in the arts.
PUBLIC LECTURE
Dyson will give a public lecture on Thursday, February 27 from 4:30 - 6 p.m. in Wright Hall, Main Theatre. The talk is free and open to the public. Doors open at 4 p.m. Parking is available in Visitor Parking Lot 5.
PHOTOS
Photographs will be available at the conclusion of the residency.
Banner photo: Torkwase Dyson, Liquid a Place, Desert X, Palm Desert © Torkwase Dyson. Photo by Lance Gerber, courtesy Desert X.