Jonathan Batista
ABOUT
A native of New York City, Jonathan Batista grew up in NYCHA housing. The images of pests, cracked walls, and poverty is embedded in his memories since childhood. As a result his work creates variety of sculptures and paintings that revolves around the events witnessed within his LGBTQ and Dominican-American Community. Using pests, found in NYC, he personifies those events with a narrative perspective.
Living in Queens, he finds correspondences from his diverse minority communities to the privileged and wealthy. Utilizing that, he creates storybook–like imagery’s that depict those relationships with Rats, Cockroaches, and Pigeons.
While and after earning his B.F.A at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Jonathan became a visual arts educator. His thesis at FIT, “Mi Familia”, was a site-specific installation that created a larger than life invasion of “minorities”. He currently is working with the Love Yourself Project and New York Edge while also continuing and developing his personal aesthetic and advocacy on the injustices of the gay and Hispanic public.
Lonely Roach
Acrylic and ink
12 x 14 in
EXHIBITIONS
LatchKey Gallery | 173 Henry Street | info@latchkeygallery.com | 646.213.9070