b. 1980, United States
Miguel Angel Payano Jr. is an Afro-Caribbean American artist working between Beijing and New York. With a visual vernacular that is informed by American, Caribbean, and Chinese cultures, he creates works that oscillate between painting and sculpture and investigate class, identity formation / socialization and storytelling. His transcultural surrealist sensibilities bind aesthetics with humour and the grotesque, often translating and transgressing different artistic forms.
Payano received a dual degree in Studio Art and Chinese Language from Williams College in Massachusetts in 2003 before moving to China and attending the renowned Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, where he graduated with an MFA in 2008. In 2020, Payano received a second MFA from Hunter College in New York, where he was the recipient of the S&W Scholarship. Payano has mounted solo exhibitions with Galleria Poggiali, Milan (2022); Ad-Diriyah Biennale, Riyadh (2021-2022); Make Room, Los Angeles (2021); Charles Moffett, New York (2021); the Williams College Wilde Gallery in Williamstown, Massachusetts (2014); LDX Contemporary Art Center, Hong Kong (2013); and the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (2006).