BCA Studio Resident

R. Galvan is a conceptual artist. Their studio practice has concentrated on the creation of a body of interconnected works exploring the theoretical and routine construction of the self—an understanding of the conditions that form and contrast reflections of one’s sense of being. I am focused on revealing ways an individual is compressed into social and administrative systems. These investigations are contextualized through a Latinx subjectivity, queerness, and vanity. I use forms, grids, and repetitive actions to show ways that lived experience, a reality informed by a racialized and queer body, is categorized and transcribed into evidentiary residue. For some instances those remains are images, books, drawings, or texts. For others, video, photographs, hair clippings, or used facial wipes serve as proxies for proof of performance. While some investigations are quickly rendered and distributed through social media, others are sustained over years and exhibited as documentation of a working practice. Galvan received a bachelor’s degree from Brown University, an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and a postgraduate fellowship with Duke University’s program in Latino/a Studies in the Global South. They have exhibited work at the National Humanities Center, the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, and internationally at the University of Coimbra (Portugal).

R. Galvan has been a BCA Studio Resident since 2022.