In 2023, he exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach, where the entire booth sold out within the first hour of the VIP preview.
Meet Boricua artist Esaí Alfredo, the “next big queer figurative painter,” according to a recent article on Artnet.
The multidisciplinary artist from Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, currently resides in Miami, where he explores themes of identity, culture, and the human condition in his work that has garnered attention at some of the biggest art fairs in the country.
Alfredo began making art at an early age by copying scenes from movies to paper, which would significantly influence his current work, he says on his website.
From 2011 to 2015, Esaí attended Escuela Especializada en Bellas Artes Anita Otero, in Humacao. After finishing high school, he took advanced drawing courses at Atelier San Juan, under the guidance of Luis Borrero and Amber Lea Kloppel. He then went to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he graduated with a BFA in illustration and painting (2020).
In 2022, he did a residency in Miami, and a year later he exhibited at Art Basel Miami Beach, where the entire booth sold out within the first hour of the VIP preview.
Alfredo is currently represented by Spinello Projects. His most recent solo show was Caminos Hacia El Mundo Nocturno/Roads to the Nocturnal World at The Armory Show, SOLO sector, in New York, in September of 2024. This collection of paintings features realistic characters amid surreal and otherworldly backgrounds.
“While each series of images I have created tells a unique story, light pollution and the detachment of humankind from the cosmos is always a vital element in my stories,” he said in an artist’s statement.
His paintings openly depict queer content, something that wasn’t always the case, the artist said.
“I would have hints of queerness in my paintings, but not very obvious,” Alfredo told Artnet. “I think growing up religious affected that. I felt guilty at some point in life painting stuff like that. So, I would just do landscapes and a lot of self-portraits. I still do self-portraits, but it’s not how my paintings are self-portraits now. I feel like I was doing them because I was trying to say something to people. Self-portrait painting is like a diary for most artists, so they’re telling how they’re feeling. But then I did that painting, and I felt so comfortable, so there was nothing to hide anymore.”
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