Kenny Rivero, Witness Revelator, 2024; Limited Edition Print

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 to be the broken narratives of Dominican-American identity, socio-geographic solidarity, familial expectations, race, and gender roles. Born in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood and currently based in the Bronx, Rivero cites the hybrid qualities of salsa, hip-hop, house music, jazz, and merengue—as well as Vodun and Santeria, which were present in his daily life while growing up—as core influences. The artist has work in a number of public collections, including that of the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. In Witness Revelator, a figure appears to run or emerge before a concrete bri