Kenny Rivero

Morán Morán presents Kenny Rivero’s exhibition titled I’m Missing.

A series of new paintings are presented, alongside a selection of drawings, which continues the artist’s characteristic aesthetic and his own format of storytelling. Rivero has a particular style and a way of rendering imagery that starkly arranges ambiguous scenes that read as dreamlike and provocative. These works index moments of his life, synthesizing ideas that are certainly personal, referencing childhood topics to present day realities.

Even, as containers of a personal history, his paintings and drawings can feel relatable and universal. They are born from a meditative and reflective process that Rivero delves into as he channels his ancestry in tandem with considering his own mortality. His naive approach to image making is purposefully vulnerable or playful, so that the historical unpacking is an embrace of experience while also serving as an exercise in being present. Through layers of medium and offbeat combinations of subjects, the artist embeds information, imbued with atmospheric and moody colors and lighting, setting a mysterious stage.

The works in this exhibition are concerned with themes of self exile, separation, and alienation. Rivero executed this series of paintings away from home, in a new and unfamiliar environment, which amplified his overall sense of isolation. Through some measures of directness mixed with abstraction, the artist confronts his struggles with loneliness. In the painting titled I’m Missing (2021), after which the exhibition is titled, a solitary nude figure in sneakers stands in a blank and sunny space, covered by a semi-sheer cloth that appears like a section of midnight has fallen directly from the sky, draping him in a dark net and constellation of stars.

As the clues to his narratives unfold through this melding of cryptic symbolism and vacillating legibility, a portal opens to reveal a place that is somewhere between the familiarity of the inner-city and a nebulous metaphysical realm. Rivero’s charged works are an exploration of mark-making, with strong roots in line and contour; but, they are also an experiment in composition, as he searches for a cadence and metering of images to express his stories without telling too much or canceling out our imagination.

— Morán Morán