René's profile

René Treviño is a gay Mexican-American artist born in Kingsville, Texas.  He received his BFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in 2003 and his MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in 2005. He has exhibited at the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, CT; the Baltimore Museum of Art, Goliath Visual Space in Brooklyn, NY; White Box in New York, NY; the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art in Wilmington, DE; the Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, VA; and Pentimenti Gallery in Philadelphia, PA.  He was also included in the 2007 Washington Project for the Arts OPTIONS Biennial in Washington DC and was awarded a 2009 Baltimore Creative Fund Individual Artist Grant and won the 2009 Trawick Prize and a 2016 Rubys Artists Project Grant. Additionally he has been an Artist in Residence at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA; AIR Serenbe in Chattahoochee Hills, GA; Creative Alliance in Baltimore, MD; The Studios of Key West in Key West, FL; and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts in Amherst, VA. In 2019 he received a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Art Works grant in collaboration with the Old Jail Art Center in Albany, TX. Recent projects include solo exhibitions at the Kentucky College of Art and Design in Louisville, KY and at the Montpelier Art Center in Laurel MD.
 
His work has been featured in Art Papers, New American Painters, Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City Paper, Philadelphia Enquirer, Washington Blade, Washington Post, Dallas Observer, D Magazine, Art F City, as well as several online publications. Trevino currently resides in Baltimore, MD and teaches at Towson University and MICA, and is represented by the Erin Cluley Gallery in Dallas, TX.

Artist Statement
 

History is subjective; there are many blurred lines and so much distortion.  Context and point of view are very important. One person's hero is another person's villain…it depends on who tells the story.  As a gay Mexican-American I have always felt excluded and under-represented by history.  By using a historical context as a backdrop for my work, I can reweave these "lessons" of the past. My work is an attempt to make our already complicated history even more complicated. The more layers that I present, the closer I can get to something that might resemble truth.
 
Throughout my work are themes of identity; I am interested in challenging traditional ideas of race and sexual orientation.  I feel compelled to make thoughtful and beautiful work that confronts societal assumptions and gives new insight into our human experience.  My artwork addresses a personal quest for heroism and bravery as well as a need to define my place in the world.




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