RICO GATSON

RICO GATSON

511 West 22nd Street | 515 West 22nd Street | 525 West 22nd Street | 520 West 21st Street New York, NY 10011 | 212.445.0051 | www.milesmcenery.com

RICO GATSON (b. 1966 in Augusta, GA) received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Bethel College in 1989 and his Master of Fine Arts from Yale School of Art in 1991.

Gatson has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at the Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA; USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL; Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York, NY; Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York, NY; Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Samsøñ Projects, Boston, MA; Studio 10, Brooklyn, NY; and the Wright Museum of Art, Beloit College, Beloit, WI. His work has been included in group exhibitions at numerous international institutions including the Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI; Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; Essl Museum, Vienna, Austria; Jewish Museum, New York, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, Austria; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY; Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA; Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; and La Vieille Charité, Marseille, France.

His work may be found in the collections of the Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL; Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, TN; Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Malcolm X Institute, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, IN; Mead Art Museum, Amherst, MA; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN; Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, NC; National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.; North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND; Peter Norton Family Foundation, Santa Monica, CA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. He is the recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award for Visual Artists; Prized Pieces Video Award from the National Black Programming Consortium; Oil Bar Ltd. Award for Excellence in Sculpture from Yale School of Art; and The Pew Charitable Trusts Graduate Fellowship.

Gatson is also a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts and New York University, and a SoVA Anderson Lecturer at The Pennsylvania State University.

The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Rico Gatson in his studio, Brooklyn, NY, 2024.

RICO GATSON

2005

“Meditations on Race and Religion,” Olson Gallery, Bethel University, St. Paul, MN

Born in 1966 in Augusta, GA

2004

“History Lessons/Clandestine,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

2003

“Recent Works,” Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis, MN

EDUCATION

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2013

Ginsberg Artist in Residence, Wright Museum of Art, Beloit College, Beloit, WI

2026

“Big Tent” (curated by Kevin Moore), FotoFocus, Cincinnati, OH

1998

Artist Residency, Franconia Sculpture Park, Shafer, MN

2025

“Interisland (New Paintings from New York & Hawai’i),” John Young Museum of Art, University of

1991

MFA, Yale University, New Haven, CT

1989

BFA, Bethel College, St. Paul, MN

Hawai’i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI “Earthbound” (curated by Theresa Daddezio), DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY 2024

SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2024 2023

“30th Anniversary,” Pierogi Gallery, New York, NY

“Above and Below,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY “Untitled (Collective Light Transfer),” Art at Amtrak, Penn Station, New York, NY

“Vote,” Rudenstine Gallery, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 2023

“Icons,” Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA

“5 YEARS: An ART FOR CHANGE Survey,” ART FOR CHANGE in collaboration with Kravets

“Spectral Visions,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

Wehby Gallery, New York, NY

“Wall to Wall,” Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL

“Black American Portraits” (curated by Liz Andrews and Christine Y. Kim), Spelman College

“Recent Work,” Scott Miller Projects, Birmingham, AL 2020

Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA

“Ghosts,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

“Poor People’s Art: A (Short) Visual History of Poverty in the United States,” USF Contemporary

“Power Portraits,” Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis, MN 2019

“Bridge Projects: You are Light,” Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York, NY

“The Alchemists” (curated by Seph Rodney and Donovan Johnson), Johnson Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA

“Visible Time,” USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL 2022

“All Bangers, All The Time: 25th Anniversary Exhibition,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

Art Museum,Tampa, FL 2022

“Rico Gatson & Cydne Jasmin Coleby,” Galerie Julien Cadet, Paris, France

“Smelling the Wind,” Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York, NY

“Color Code,” McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco, CA

2018

“My Eyes Have Seen,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

“Summer Drift,” Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

2017

“Rico Gatson: 2007-2017,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

“Light Play,” Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL

2016

“Power Lines,” Samsøñ Projects, Boston, MA

“The Grid and the Curve,” JTT, New York, NY

2014

“When She Speaks,” Studio 10, Brooklyn, NY

“Pattern Recognition” (curated by Amy Lincoln), Sperone Westwater, New York, NY

2013

“The Promise of Light,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

“GEOMETRIES” (curated by Damien Davis), Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling,

“2013 Ginsberg Artist in Residence,” Wright Museum of Art, Beloit College, Beloit, WI 2011

“Singing in Unison” (curated by Phong Bui), Rail Curatorial Projects, New York, NY

“History Lessons,” Suzanne Lemberg Usdan Gallery, Bennington College, Bennington, VT

“Cosmic Geometries,” The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Project Space, New York, NY

2009

“Dark Matter,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

2008

“Black Magic/Black Power,” Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA Pocket Utopia, Brooklyn, NY

2006

New York, NY

“Three Trips Around the Block,” Exit Art, New York, NY 2021

“Annotations & Improvisations” (curated by Kristen Becker), Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY “Black American Portraits” (curated by Christine Y. Kim), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, MN

“RE: REPRESENTATION,” Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA

“African Fractals,” Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, TN; traveled to Ronald Feldman

“Sacred Spaces: Art and Spirituality at the Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York,”

Gallery, New York, NY

Fourth Universalist Society in the City of New York, New York, NY

“Recognition & Response: Rico Gatson & David Huffman,” Miles McEnery Gallery at The Armory

“Accumulations: 5000 Years of Objects, Fictions, and Conversations,” Mead Art Museum, Amherst

Show, New York, NY

College, Amherst, MA

“Dialogues in African American Abstract Painting,” Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art, James Madison

“Every Five Minutes,” Columbus State University, Columbus, GA

University, Harrisonburg, VA “Visions and Nightmares,” Simone Subal Gallery, New York, NY

“Language Product,” Boston Arts Academy, Boston, MA 2015

“Naked in Brooklyn,” Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

“The Raft,” The Boiler, Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

“Wood Works: Raw, Cut, Carved, Covered,” Sperone Westwater, New York, NY

“When Artists Speak Truth...,” The 8th Floor, New York, NY

“Light” (curated by Rico Gatson), Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

“All Killer No Filler,” Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, NY

“Re:Growth: A Celebration of Art, Riverside Park and the New York Spirit” (curated by Karin

“Magic Objects” (curated by Rico Gatson), 99 Cent Plus Gallery, New York, NY

Bravin), Riverside Park Conservancy, New York, NY 2020

“Make Their Gold Teeth Ache,” Moberg Gallery, Des Moines, IA

“True Lines,” Over the Influence, Los Angeles, CA

“between a place and candy: new works in pattern + repetition + motif,” 1285 Avenue of the

“All Things Bright and Beautiful,” Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL

Americas Gallery, New York, NY

“We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz,” Jewish Museum,

“Painting is Dead?!,” Figure One Gallery, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL

New York, NY 2019

“RESPOND,” Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY

“New Symphony of Time,” Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS “Historicity,” Ochi Projects, Los Angeles, CA

2018

“Pay to Play,” ODETTA Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2014

“Guns in the Hands of Artists,” Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA

“Rico Gatson and Baseera Khan: Free to Be,” Jenkins Johnson Projects, New York, NY

“Pierogi XX: Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition,” Pierogi, Brooklyn, NY

“Win Sourced Scribes,” Mother Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

“SEVEN/VIDEO,” The Boiler, Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2013

“15 Artists in Black & White,” Outlet Fine Arts, Brooklyn, NY

“Jazz and Love,” La Vieille Charité, Marseille, France

“The Ceiling Should Be Green,” P!, New York, NY

“The Art of Protest,” Arete Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

“American Beauty,” Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, NY

“Isness,” Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY

2012

“#UNLOAD: Guns in the Hands of Artists,” Walsh Gallery of the Fairfield University Art Museum,

“New. New York,” Essl Museum, Vienna, Austria “Bigger Than Shadows,” Dodge Gallery, New York, NY

Fairfield, CT

“Rico Gatson and Christ Larson,” Trinity Christian College, Palos Heights, IL

“Identity Document,” Gallery Bergen, Bergen Community College, Paramus, NJ

“Lyrical Color,” Pocket Utopia, Brooklyn, NY

“We the People,” Minnesota Museum of American Art, St. Paul, MN

“Paper Variables,” Dieu Donné, New York, NY

“1967: Parallels in Black Art and Rebellion,” Charles H. Wright Museum of African American

“Rico Gatson and Angela Dufresne,” Barbara Walters Gallery, Sarah Lawrence College,

History, Detroit, MI

2016

“CEMETARIUM” (presented by Regina Rex), Emerson Dorsch, Miami, FL

“Summer 2019,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

“Art + Activism: Drawing the Line,” Children’s Museum of Art, New York, NY

2017

“Devotion,” Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, New York, NY

Bronxville, NY

“Sharper Image,” Present Company, Brooklyn, NY

“Every Exit is an Entrance: 30 Years of Exit Art,” Exit Art, New York, NY

“Art on the Front Lines,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

“The Bearden Project,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

“Spielplatz” (curated by William Corwin and David Goodman), Geary Contemporary, New York, NY

“What I Know” (curated by Jason Andrew), New York Center for Art and Media Studies,

“Moving Image,” The Tunnel, New York, NY “Phantom,” OSMOS, New York, NY “Jameco Exchange,” No Longer Empty, New York, NY

New York, NY 2011

“Per-son-age,” Famous Accountants Gallery, Brooklyn, NY “Taking Shape,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY “It’s All in the Peripherals,” Mellwood Art Center, Louisville, KY

“Blink! Light, Sound and the Moving Image,” Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO “Geometric Days,” Exit Art, New York, NY

“M*A*S*H,” The Helena, New York, NY 2006

“En-Garde II: omg,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY 2010

“The Jewel Thief,” Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY

“The Studio Visit,” Exit Art, New York, NY 2005

“African Queen,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

“Resurrectine,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

“About Face: a selection of artists’ videos,” Todd Madigan Gallery, California State University,

“Global/National,” Exit Art, New York, NY

Bakersfield, CA 2004

“Fight or Flight,” Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York, NY

“Incarnational Aesthetics,” New York Center for Art and Media Studies, New York, NY

“FACE OFF,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

“Reduced Visibility,” Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

“Open House: Working in Brooklyn,” Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY

“You Killed My Pretty Things,” U.N.O. St. Claude Gallery, University of New Orleans,

“Video X: 10 Years of Video with Momenta Art,” Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY 2003

“2009 Bushwick Biennial: Finally Utopic,” Pocket Utopia, Brooklyn, NY

“Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self,” International Center of Photography, New York, NY

“BLACK&WHITEWORKS,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

“Black Belt,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

“Art and Text: Images, Concepts, and Insights,” Dadian Gallery, Wesley Theological Seminary,

“The 3rd Photo-Media Festival,” Gana Art Center, Seoul, South Korea

Washington, D.C.

“Living Units,” Triple Candie, New York, NY

“The Labyrinth Wall: From Mythology to Reality,” Exit Art, New York, NY

“Decade,” Schroeder Romero, Brooklyn, NY

“Drawing Review: 37 Years of Works on Paper,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

“Ameri©an Dre@m,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

“Filmic,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

“Living Inside the Grid,” New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY

“Prospect 1,” Prospect, New Orleans, LA

“Veni Vidi Video,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

“intransit,” Moti Hassan Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2007

“Black Belt,” Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA

“NEW year, NEW work, NEW space,” Storefront for Art and Architecture, Brooklyn, NY

New Orleans, LA

2008

“Greater New York 2005,” P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY

“Divide & Conquer,” Spirol Art Gallery, Quinebaug Valley Community College, Danielson, CT “Ocketopia,” Lesley Heller Workspace, New York, NY

2009

“Drift,” Bronx River Arts Center, Bronx, NY

2002

“Spinning,” MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA

“ALONE/TOGETHER,” Talman + Monroe, New York, NY

“Knockout Fairground,” Washington Square East Galleries, New York, NY

“Red Badge of Courage,” Newark Arts Council, Newark, NJ

“Americas Remixed,” Comune di Milano, Milan, Italy

“System Failure,” Cynthia Broan Gallery, New York, NY

“Season Review: Fall ‘01 - Spring ‘02,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

“death & love in MODERN TIMES,” Dinter Fine Art, New York, NY

“Paris Exchange,” Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY

“STAND,” New York Center for Art and Media Studies, New York, NY

“Enough About Me,” Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY

“En Perfecto Desorden,” Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

“Race in Digital Space,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

“Most Humans Do Not Know Better,” Brooke Alexander Editions, New York, NY

2001

“A Painting for Over the Sofa (That’s Not Necessarily a Painting),” Bernice Steinbaum Gallery,

“Digital Political Time Lapse,” Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY

Miami, FL; traveled to the Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN; Walton Arts Center,

“Unfathom,” Max Protech Gallery, New York, NY

Fayetteville, AR; William Patterson University, Wayne, NJ; Fuller Museum, Brockton, MA;

“Heco en Bushwick,” Norte Maar, Brooklyn, NY

Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV; Lakeview Museum, Peoria, IL; and the

“Double-Edged Abstraction,” g-module, Paris, France

University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE

“Multiples,” Suzanne Lemberg Usdan Gallery, Bennington College, Bennington, VT “Silhouette,” Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY “Intelligent Design,” Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY

“Masking: Rico Gatson (Kindred) & Andres Serrano (Klansman),” Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA “Brooklyn!,” Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art, Lake Worth, FL

“Cold Blood,” Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY

Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL

“Race in Digital Space,” MIT List Visual Arts Center, Boston, MA

Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, TN

“FREESTYLE,” Studio Musuem in Harlem, New York, NY; traveled to Santa Monica Museum of Art,

Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO

Santa Monica, CA 2000

1999

1998

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO

“Light x Eight: The Hanukkah Project 2000,” Jewish Museum, New York, NY

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

“Videotheque Kunst Zürich 2000,” Serge Ziegler Galerie, Zürich, Switzerland

Malcolm X Institute, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, IN

“Never Never Land,” University Galleries, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL; traveled to

Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, MA

USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL; and Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts,

Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN

Camden, NJ

Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, NC

“The Light Show,” Gale Gates, Brooklyn, NY

National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.

“The Flat Files,” University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA

North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND

“Group Exhibition,” Soap Factory, Minneapolis, MN

Peter Norton Family Foundation, Santa Monica, CA

“Working In Brooklyn: Beyond Technology,” Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

“Rage for Art,” Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY

“Video Program,” Cynthia Broan Gallery, New York, NY

University of San Diego, San Diego, CA

“Hybro Video,” Exit Art, New York, NY

Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN

“Current Undercurrent: Working in Brooklyn,” Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

“Artists Respond to 2001: Space Odyssey,” Williamsburg Art & Historical Society, Brooklyn, NY

1996

“The View from Denver,” Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, Austria

SELECT COMMISSIONS

“Gramercy International Art Fair,” Gramercy Park Hotel, New York, NY

MTA Arts & Design Program, Subway Mosaic, 167th Street Station, New York, NY

“Video Faz,” Art&Idea, Mexico City, Mexico

Penn Station, New York, NY

“Cadmium-Cathode,” Sauce, Brooklyn, NY

Woolworth’s Luncheonette, Bakersfield, CA

“Benefit Show,” Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY 1995

“Constriction,” Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

SELECT LECTURES

“Presence,” Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT

2025

“On the Lam,” Thicket Gallery, New York, NY “Other Rooms,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

of Arts and Architecture, University Park, PA 2022

“Options 2,” Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO 1994

“Guest Faculty Lecture: Shoko Teruyama and Rico Gatson,” Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO

“Faux,” Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY

“Artist-led Art Exploration with Chris Bogia and Rico Gatson,” Morningside Area Alliance,

“FIRED-A Late-Nite Comedy Show,” No Bias Space, North Bennington, VT; traveled to Thicket

New York, NY

Gallery, New York, NY 1993

“John M. Anderson Endowed Lecture Series: Rico Gatson,” School of Visual Arts, Penn State College

Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, New York, NY

“Benefit Show,” Momenta Art, Brooklyn, NY

2021

Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York, NY

“Group Exhibition,” Art Space, New Haven, CT

2020

“Rico Gatson Virtual Studio Tour,” Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York, NY “Rico Gatson: Power Portraits,” Delaware County Community College, Media, PA

SELECT COLLECTIONS Bethel College, St. Paul, MN

2018

“Fine Arts Visiting Artists Lecture Series: Rico Gatson,” Pratt Institute, New York, NY

Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, 30 January 2015

Artist lecture, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA Artist lecture, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY

2014

Artist lecture, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA

2013

Ginsberg Artist-in-Residence Keynote Lecture, Beloit College, Beloit, WI

2005

Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York, NY, 25 January

2001

School of Fine & Performing Arts, SUNY New Paltz, New Paltz, NY, 12 September

SELECT PUBLICATIONS 2025

Revelation: A Journey Into Abstraction,” New York: National Museum of African American History and

2024

Rico Gatson: Above and Below, New York: Miles McEnery Gallery

2022

Rico Gatson: Spectral Visions, New York: Miles McEnery Gallery.

Culture / Rizzoli Books.

Eshun, Ekow, In the Black Fantastic, London: Thames & Hudson, 107.

2020

Rico Gatson: Ghosts, New York: Miles McEnery Gallery.

2016

Unfinished Memories: 30 Years of Exit Art, Göttingen, Germany: Steidl, 35, 65.

2014

The Jewel Thief, Cleveland, OH: Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, 67.

2009

Bushwick Biennial, Brooklyn: NURTURE Art, 46.

2004

Open House: Working in Brooklyn, Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum.

2003

Ameri©an Dre@m, New York: Ronald Feldman Gallery.

Cameron, Dan, Living Inside the Grid, New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art. Forbidden: Photo Festival 2003, Seoul, South Korea: Gana Art Center.

Freestyle (essay by Thelma Golden), New York: Studio Museum in Harlem.

1995

On & Off the Wall, Denver, CO: Denver Art Museum.

1994

Odita, Odili Donald, Fire At Will, New York.

Rico Gatson’s studio, Brooklyn, NY, 2024.

SELECT WORKS

511 West 22nd Street | 515 West 22nd Street | 525 West 22nd Street | 520 West 21st Street New York, NY 10011 | 212.445.0051 | www.milesmcenery.com

Cicely, 2022, Color pencil and photograph collage on paper, 22 x 30 inches.

In the collection of the National Museum of African American History & Culture, Washington, D.C.

Toni #2, 2021, Color pencil and photograph collage on paper, 22 x 30 inches.

In the collection of the Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC.

Bird, 2015, Color pencil and photograph collage on paper, 22 x 30 inches.

In the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA.

Untitled (Afro-Utopia I), 2024, Acrylic paint on wood, 36 x 48 inches.

In the collection of the North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, ND

Untitled (Triple Consciousness), 2022, Acrylic paint and glitter on wood, 36 x 80 inches.

In the collection of the National Museum of African American History & Culture, Washington, D.C.

Untitled (Flag IIII), 2021, Acrylic paint on wood, 36 x 48 inches.

In the collection of the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

Untitled (Bluesologists After Gil Scott), 2021, Acrylic paint on wood, 36 x 80 inches.

In the collection of the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.

Untitled (Young Mystics), 2020, Acrylic paint and glitter on wood, 36 x 80 inches.

In the collection of the Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN.

EXHIBITION VIEWS

511 West 22nd Street | 515 West 22nd Street | 525 West 22nd Street | 520 West 21st Street New York, NY 10011 | 212.445.0051 | www.milesmcenery.com

Installation view of “Interisland (New Paintings from New York & Hawai’i),” 31 August - 7 December 2025, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, HI. Photo by Debra Drexler, image courtesy of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

Installation view of “Earthbound” (curated by Theresa Daddezio), 23 January - 22 February 2025, DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY. Image courtesy of DC Moore Gallery.

New York, NY: Miles McEnery Gallery, “Rico Gatson: Above and Below,” 5 September - 26 October 2024.

New York, NY: Miles McEnery Gallery, “Rico Gatson: Above and Below,” 5 September - 26 October 2024.

Installation view of EXPO Chicago IN/SITU, 11 April - 14 April 2024, Chicago, IL.

Installation view of “Rico Gatson:Visible Time” (curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné), 2 June - 29 July 2023, Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. Photograph by Will Lytch.

Installation view of “Rico Gatson:Visible Time” (curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné), 2 June - 29 July 2023, Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. Photograph by Will Lytch.

Installation view of “Rico Gatson:Visible Time” (curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné), 2 June - 29 July 2023, Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. Photograph by Will Lytch.

Installation view of “Rico Gatson:Visible Time” (curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné), 2 June - 29 July 2023, Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. Photograph by Will Lytch.

New York, NY: Miles McEnery Gallery, “Rico Gatson: Spectral Visions,” 8 December 2022 - 28 January 2023.

New York, NY: Miles McEnery Gallery, “Rico Gatson: Spectral Visions,” 8 December 2022 - 28 January 2023.

New York, NY: Miles McEnery Gallery, “Rico Gatson: Spectral Visions,” 8 December 2022 - 28 January 2023.

Installation view of “Wall to Wall: Rico Gatson” (presented by PNC), 5 August 2022 - 17 June 2023, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL.

Installation view of “Wall to Wall: Rico Gatson” (presented by PNC), 5 August 2022 - 17 June 2023, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL.

Installation view of “Wall to Wall: Rico Gatson” (presented by PNC), 5 August 2022 - 17 June 2023, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL.

Installation view of “Wall to Wall: Rico Gatson” (presented by PNC), 5 August 2022 - 17 June 2023, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL.

Installation view of “The Importance of Line,” 27 July - 27 August 2021, Patton-Malott Gallery, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO.

Installation view of “GEOMETRIES,” 4 June - 20 August 2022, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, New York, NY.

New York, NY: Miles McEnery Gallery, “Rico Gatson: Ghosts,” 19 November - 19 December 2020.

New York, NY: Miles McEnery Gallery, “Rico Gatson: Ghosts,” 19 November - 19 December 2020.

INSTALLATIONS

511 West 22nd Street | 515 West 22nd Street | 525 West 22nd Street | 520 West 21st Street New York, NY 10011 | 212.445.0051 | www.milesmcenery.com

Woolworth Lunch Counter, 2025, Bakersfield, CA. Photo courtesy of Sherod Waite.

“Untitled (Collective Light Transfer),” Upper-Level Main Rotunda between the 8th Avenue Amtrak Departure Concourse and 7th Avenue NJ TRANSIT Concourse, 2024, Penn Station, New York, NY.

“Untitled (Collective Light Transfer),” Upper-Level Main Rotunda between the 8th Avenue Amtrak Departure Concourse and 7th Avenue NJ TRANSIT Concourse, 2024, Penn Station, New York, NY.

“Untitled (Collective Light Transfer),” Upper-Level Main Rotunda between the 8th Avenue Amtrak Departure Concourse and 7th Avenue NJ TRANSIT Concourse, 2024, Penn Station, New York, NY.

“Fred S.,” Mural unveiled 23 May 2024, Birmingham-Shuttlesworth international Airport, Birmingham, AL.

“Fred S.,” Mural unveiled 23 May 2024, Birmingham-Shuttlesworth international Airport, Birmingham, AL.

“OVERRIDE | A Billboard Project,” 3 April - 23 April 2023, EXPO CHICAGO, Chicago, IL.

“OVERRIDE | A Billboard Project,” 3 April - 23 April 2023, EXPO CHICAGO, Chicago, IL.

“Beacons” (2018) © Rico Gatson, NYCT 167 St Station. James Baldwin portrait derived from a photograph by Steve Schapiro.

Photo courtesy of Seong Kwon.

“Beacons” (2018) © Rico Gatson, NYCT 167 St Station.

Photo courtesy of Seong Kwon.

“Beacons” (2018) © Rico Gatson, NYCT 167 St Station.

Photo courtesy of Seong Kwon.

Installation view of “Beacons” (2018) © Rico Gatson, NYCT 167 St Station.

Photo courtesy of Seong Kwon.

“Beacons” (2018) © Rico Gatson, NYCT 167 St Station.

Photo courtesy of Seong Kwon.

“Beacons” (2018) © Rico Gatson, NYCT 167 St Station.

Photo courtesy of Seong Kwon.

SELECT PRESS

511 West 22nd Street | 515 West 22nd Street | 525 West 22nd Street | 520 West 21st Street New York, NY 10011 | 212.445.0051 | www.milesmcenery.com

SELECT ESSAYS

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RICO GATSON, ABOVE AND BELOW

The artist will “essentially work on several paintings at a time,” allowing his process to reveal itself. With this series,

September 2024 | By Erica N. Cardwell

we encounter the artist situated within a quieter and directed process, something more deeply concerned with felt

One of the many standout paintings in Rico Gatson’s exhibition, “Above and Below,” is Untitled (Mother Star).

The prismatic element of the bullseye, incorporating shades of yellow, blue, and pink set apart by the strips of black and white in the background, could readily be attributed to the emotional pulse of the exhibition, specifically for the movement it portrays. Much of Gatson’s recent career celebrates Black iconography, notably featuring jazz musician Cecil Taylor, Black feminist theorist bell hooks, and queer author James Baldwin.

Each figure is represented with a black and white photo transfer in a classic rendering, with bright colorways stretching outwards like rays of the sun. For Gatson’s latest series, “Above and Below,” the artist has taken a more visionary approach to his connections to iconography and developed what he describes as “utopic landscapes.”1 In these works, the artist revisits his primary-colored palette by introducing complex surrealist compositions, and the direct intent to heal.

“Above and Below” contains fourteen new works, painted with acrylic on large hollow core doors, several spanning over six feet in length. Still inspired by Black icons, but instead honing into a metaphysical mentality or transcendent approach to the world. Afrofuturist artist and musician, SUN RA, in particular, is a long-time inspiration for Gatson, who is known for his performance art and belief in space travel as a means of Black people obtaining liberation beyond this world. Gatson’s concept of “utopic landscapes” directly aligns with SUN RA’s visionary philosophy, insisting that not only is another world possible, but it is already available within the Black imagination. “Above and Below” is a collection of works elevated beyond metaphysical concept and more deeply intertwined with a forward-thinking mentality invested in collective healing.

Gatson studied sculpture at Yale and graduated in 1991, beginning his painting practice in the early 2000s. By 2016 Gatson became involved with public art installations, and other large-scale projects.As a self-described,“sculptor who paints,” Gaston’s work is exemplary of hard-edge abstraction, a category that initially connotes contrast—edges or lines and geometric forms are often considered counterintuitive to abstract formation. However, within the legacy of Black abstraction—specifically artists in the Washington School, such as Sam Gilliam, Kenneth V. Young, and Emma Amos—the presence of opacity needn’t ameliorate a capacity of focused vision. In a memorable public project, Gatson’s work was featured on various walls and columns throughout New York Penn Station under the title Untitled (Collective Light Transfer). Gatson’s signature infusion of geometric compositions, primary colors and overall tone of movement creates a vibrant display.

Gatson considered, “The idea that someone could assign their work to healing. This was a desire for the work. This was something that spoke to me. I like the concept of trying to make something related to healing as art. I approach the making that way. A transference. It’s rooted in care and love.” In his Brooklyn studio, Gatson has the tendency to develop his works “in conversation.”

experience—his and his audience’s—a concept undeniable in the school of hard-edge abstraction. In a virtual studio visit, Gatson ruminated early on, “Even though it’s this literal thing, it’s felt. Did that make any sense?”3 The latter sentiment of “does that make sense”—is a frequent, colloquial phrasing, a comment that typically conveys a desire for reassurance from an interlocutor. However, rather than seeking affirmation, Gatson appeared quite assured by this description of his intuitive process. “Felt experience” is difficult to put into words, descriptions will distill an internal relationship into heavy handed phrasing. While “felt experience” is beyond language, the fourteen paintings in Above and Below deliver a synesthetic pulse, Gatson’s desired “environment” for the paintings, is one in which an experience is generated individually rather than prescribed.

While also intuitive and open to aspects of interpretation, Gatson is deeply invested in care, similar to the approach of surrealist painters Hilma AF Klimt and Georgina Houghton.These artists often used a method called “automatism” or “drawing the invisible” to connect with the metaphysical and subconscious process of painting. The artist Emma Kunz pioneered automatism as an important technique in her definition of spiritual art. Art historian,Yasmin Afschar, describes Kunz as a researcher and a healer and that the artist “only became an artist posthumously,” referencing how the artist’s visual practice dictated her primary identity.4 Healing was also Kunz’ intention; this is conveyed through her use of the hypnotic symbol of the mandala, as a central motif. The mandala is attributed to religious iconography, specifically Buddhist and some Catholic sects. As an appropriated symbol, the depiction of the circle in motion is meant to inspire and transform.

Similarly, Gatson, has incorporated a “bullseye” into the “Above and Below” series. The bullseye is represented by a fixed, primary-colored pinwheel. This effect can be observed in Untitled (After the Storm) through the placement of the bullseye within an oceanic seascape with several diagonal lightning bolts stacked on either side. Viewers may experience the center shape as a light source or deity. The winding circle leading into infinitude—nowhere and everywhere—is a consistent symbol on the handmade album covers of SUN RA and his bandmates.5 The black and white cover for SUN RA and the Myth Science Arkestra depicts a circle swirling with hand drawn staircases in a meditative spiral. Another version of the album cover shows SUN RA holding an orb-like sun figure above his head, appearing to examine it on all sides.

Untitled (Astral Black I) and Untitled (Astral Black II), display the bullseye with a softer affect, converging at the center with angular, path-like core in the upper portion of the painting. The symmetry in Untitled (Afro-Utopia I) of even lines and measured strips of red, green, and blue, manage the hypnotic dimension of the Astral Black series. Beyond the black and white, this hybrid pink, cast on with a smudge like affect, introduces a dialectical influence noticeable in Untitled (Afro-Utopia II). It is in this series that viewers will connect with the work’s thesis, a consciousness shared within the work, and Gatson’s attempt at conveying the mysteries of space into the environment of the exhibition.

Much of this thinking aligns with Gatson’s use of the color black, a connection with the expansive, constellation filled

UNDENIABLE ENERGY

cosmos. Surprising within these works is the provocative opacity, the sense of convenance between Gatson and the

December 2022 | By Siddhartha Mitter

works, suggesting a world, a galaxy far beyond.

While SUN RA is an early influence, jazz trumpeter, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, formerly Christian Scott, is often considered a SUN RA contemporary, and another inspiration for Gatson. This transition into a nuanced approach reveals itself in the works. Untitled (Circle Theory I) continues to work with the same concept from the “Astral Black” series but introduces a slight departure in the use of multiple, overlapping concentric shapes as primary focal points.

Untitled (CircleTheory Small) is half the size of most of the other paintings but is situated as a continuation of Untitled (Circle Theory I). And Untitled (Four Vibrations) splits the bullseye, disrupting this forward version by shifting to a more active and internal dimension.

Concepts of healing are periodically disregarded in contemporary art perspectives; certain schools of thought insist that art isn’t meant to do anything to or for viewers.This idea is a seminal debate among art critics and writers mainly because the topic of interpretation or meaning from art infers a sense of responsibility. For Gatson, his career has centered around elevating Black iconography to a place of purposeful and intentional homage. “Above and Below” touches more specifically on the relationship that such reverie can have on the psyche of the viewer, how it can heal us.

“Above and Below” is a dazzling series of works by a visionary painter. Gatson’s devotion to futuristic and calming tones is a refreshing approach both to Black abstraction and an offering to our community, motivating us to continue moving.

Daylight dances in Rico Gatson’s studio. Several panes of the old industrial window carry a green or gold tint that animates the space, shifting with the weather and the time of day. The rays spark alchemies with Gatson’s paintings in progress—with the polyrhythmic, geometric patterns that organize them, and with their vibrant palette. Lately, the studio has grown ever more vibrant.

It’s high summer, and Gatson is working on the new paintings for this exhibition. The stereo plays Coltrane— John today, but Alice is also a favorite. The space is compact—not crowded so much as full, with works set close to one another. Those nearer to completion hang or rest against the wall. Those in earlier stages lay flat on tables and trestles. He has identified the form they will take and established the lines of the composition, but the colors are still hypotheses, some simply tentative letter codes jotted on the surface. They will find their values in the making.

“There is a system,” Gatson begins, then demurs, “but I don’t want it to seem too tight.” He needn’t worry.

The variety in these works—the patterns that contrast and segment and overlap; the complex, bravura coloration—brim with the intuitive confidence of a brilliant and experienced improviser. Gatson’s latest paintings underscore how method—in art as in science—is a gateway, not a result. It succeeds when it opens new directions inside the work, when the revealed possibilities confound expectation.

It is a seeker’s approach, and Gatson holds a stated affinity for modern art’s mystics, like Emma Kunz and Hilma af Klint. He is equally guided by the history of Black geometry in Africa and its diasporic expressions.

African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design, by the scholar Ron Eglash, is a staple reference on his bookcase. Pattern, rhythm, and geometry organize textiles, hair design, architecture, music, and cosmology in the Black world. They are spiritual and socially constitutive. They emerge in the quilts of Gee’s Bend, and in W. E. B. Du Bois’ data visualizations of Black economics and social life.

But Gatson’s process is also that of a sculptor; after all, sculpture was the focus of his Yale graduate training.

Even as he has found greater success in two dimensions, the third has remained present and active. It’s suggested in his predilection for working on hard surfaces—doors and fabricated boards, robust to the touch, conveying resilience and the symbolism of passageways. Sculpture manifests in the room as a kind of force field, governed by the boundless interplay of his compositions and that shifting, shimmering light.

This work is energy work. It is why Gatson holds fast to this modest studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn, which he has kept for years, with its window that he likens to a readymade. It is why he composes multiple paintings at once, not as a series but as an organism, a whole. “I want there to be dialogue between things in space,” he

says. “There is a vibration.”

clear, but it’s a tangent connection, like two lines that touch then separate again. For Gatson brings to these paintings the whole corpus of Black philosophy and engagement that animates what came before. The

I ask Gatson where he locates risk in his practice, these days.

information, the archive, are wrenching and indelible. Therefore, there is a prospect as well: liberation.

The risk, he answers, is not rooted in a move, in artistic or conceptual gesture applied to a particular artwork. “The

Gatson’s studio shorthand makes the references plain. “We’ve been calling the paintings with triangles and

risk-taking is more in establishing this way of working,” he says. “I want there to be this undeniable energy within

circles the ‘council paintings,’” he tells me. “Because it’s like a group of forms, loosely figurative in my mind.”

each piece.”

An alignment of tall, pointed triangles carries, of course, a jarring connotation in American history, and in one work, Untitled (Luminous Bodies I), two areas in a particular pink—a new entrant in his palette—propose an

Abstraction, as a category or language, never quite captures what Gatson is up to. For one thing, his art can be

explicit nod to Philip Guston’s Klan paintings.

explicitly figural, even bordering on narrative. Operating since the 1990s in sculpture, video, drawing, and beyond, he has taken on not just symbolic language but specific images from Black and American history, notably by employing

“Guston is someone I think about a lot, in terms of painting, though I’m working in purely geometrical forms,”

collage or the transfer of archival materials.

Gatson says. I ask him to elaborate. “Because he was flawed, human and radical in how he changed,” Gatson answers. “He made his best work in those last ten years. He was shunned for it, ostracized—and it’s indelible.

He has dealt this way, in the past, with sinister American information—lynchings, the Ku Klux Klan, the killers Roy

It’s powerful and poignant work. It’s loose, it’s poetry. I’m not saying that’s happening for me, but there are

Bryant and J.W. Milam who executed Emmett Till.

these forms.”

His work that has enjoyed the broadest public reach is his long-running Icons series, which he initiated in 2007. It is

Other motifs also track to histories of violence and resistance—concentric circles have their origin in the

celebratory—a contrast to his more somber subject matter, on one level, but also a response to it, attentive to the

idea of the target, for instance. Now they are cosmic targets, Gatson says, set loose by the fractal release in

dialectics of history. These luminous pieces in pencil, each honoring a major figure in Black culture, music, politics, or

their overlapping rings. “I’m usually responding to something real and actually in the world,” he says, “but on a

social history, are less portraits than, again, energy studies. He renders each by appropriation of a black-and-white

subconscious level.” The central paired elements that mirror but never quite touch in Untitled (Spectral Visions)

archival photograph that he places near the paper’s edge, and from which impeccable beams of color radiate across

appeared to him in a half-waking state one morning, holding back just short of a direct reference. They seemed

the page. In his permanent installation for the 167th Street subway station (located at 167th Street and Grand

to allude to islands in space, he says, or to keys—again the doors of perception—again passage and gateway. In

Concourse), eight of these Icons, all with ties to the Bronx, grace the platform wall in glass mosaic.

the studio, the work was not yet finished, those core elements installed but the background still in play.

Now come paintings that unlock worlds. In Gatson’s new works, we experience a kind of interstellar rush as the

The “totems” are another element of shorthand for Gatson’s striking tall board works, which in past expressions

patterns and forms that he has long explored in his painting practice seem to accelerate toward some sort of

divided into segments inspired by, among other sources, the patterning of social and ritual information in textile

transcendent exit velocity. They are buzzing.

traditions such as kente. They have grown wilder, whether deepening within the pattern—notice the layering, the subtle shifting in density—or escaping it, like these jagged irregular forms in green, blue, purple, and orange

Triangles and inverted triangles, circles of various diameters, vertical or horizontal stripes in negative space, aligned

that seem to tumble down the darkened plane. In the studio, seven of these planks rest close together against

segments, remain his favored graphical tactics to organize the field. But new things are happening. The overlaps have

the wall, where they simultaneously clash and harmonize. He views them as an ensemble, he says, and invites

grown more intense, their geometries more involved. The color decisions are intuitive and irregular. New forms are

them to switch places, mutable and alignable in any sequence.

birthed in the vortex. Some are implicit, relying for their manifestation on the play of optics, the mind’s eye. Others are right there in the design. They break and tumble across the surface. Getting loose. Getting free.

In the past year and a half, Gatson traveled several times to Birmingham, Alabama, where he was developing works for an atrium commission at the Birmingham Museum of Art. For one wall, he produced a painting in the

Here is where Gatson’s project takes leave of its affinities with, notably, Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings, which that artist

Icons vein honoring the city’s Civil Rights movement hero, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, with members of

postulated as advanced studies in form, as expressed in the conceit of their instruction-like titles. The inspiration is

the community assisting in its completion. Opposite is a vinyl mural work that is all geometric forms. It is nonfigural

but also an homage to a scion of Birmingham—the jazz composer and band leader Sun Ra, whose contributions, no less crucial, operated on astral planes.

With his own deep roots in Georgia, Gatson feels the South on a visceral level, but in Birmingham the research was local and specific, rhythmed by exchange with those who remember the struggle or carry on in its legacy. Visiting the 16th Street Baptist Church, site of the terrible 1963 bombing, he was deeply affected. It had inspired a work that he had newly begun, he says, but he came away from Birmingham with something more—a kind of confirmation of purpose, ever-deepening the dimensions of the work that escape any art criticism or art history parameters: the spiritual aspect, to give it language.

In the living presence of the freedom struggle, the stakes clarified. Spirit. Transformation. “It’s the possibility for transcendence,” he says. “The transference of my energy as a being, hopefully a spiritual being. I have to believe in that power, the potential for healing.”