David Antonio Cruz: iknowyou'vewondered wherei'vebeen... — David Antonio Cruz

The work of David Antonio Cruz evokes a sense of home, while defying conventional interpretations. For Cruz, home is conjured through the bonds of community, sustained by a sense of possibility and belonging that comes from being among loved ones. The artist’s rich multidisciplinary practice encompasses painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, and performance, often centering Black, brown, and queer communities. He explores themes of desire and play, as he combines personal history with references from art history, literature, fashion, and pop culture to reinterpret the idealized body in classical modes of figuration. Posing, in particular, is an act of resistance, frolic, and belonging in many of his dreamlike and stylized portrait paintings of dear friends and chosen kin. The intertwined figures can be seen as embodied landscapes, forming mountains, environments, shaping a home, and creating spaces of intimacy.

Displayed in Wave Hill’s Glyndor Gallery, a former private estate, Cruz’s solo exhibition iknowyou'vewonderedwherei'vebeen; adrift,astare,atilt,asigh,exhale brings the theme of home to life through an immersive, site-specific installation that responds to the domestic interior space of the building’s architecture. Through his transformation of space, Cruz’s exhibition blurs the boundaries between public and private, exterior and interior, visible and hidden. Also included are drawings that camouflage figures in intricate woodland backgrounds, which represent the artist’s expanded exploration of home and its intersections with geography, diaspora, LGBTQ+ culture, and autobiography. The artist-designed wallpaper lining the interior of the south gallery recall the forest around Cruz’s ancestral home in Puerto Rico, particularly his father’s childhood home, while incorporating views of the surrounding environment outside of Glyndor Gallery. Stretched across the walls to encompass viewers, the landscapes depicted also resemble maps, evoking an underlying search for belonging, escape, and finding one’s place.

About the artist

David Antonio Cruz is an interdisciplinary artist working in painting, drawing, performance, and site-specific installations. Drawing on a mix of queer discourse, fashion, history, and pop culture, his work interrogates Western traditions of representation and invites subjects to pose as a form of resistance and play, queering the act of posing.