Bio
Néstor Pérez-Molière was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and currently resides in The Bronx, New York. His art entails a process of self-discovery; a series of confessionals revealing private conflicts; hoping towards catharsis. Through this cathartic process he hopes to connect with the viewer’s struggles and depathologize negative feelings so that they can be seen as a source for political action rather than its antithesis. Néstor exposes mental health issues like depression, dysmorphia, food addictions, and loneliness: describing their mechanisms, scrutinizing their origins, and illuminating the impossibility of fixing them. His practice mainly takes place in the realm of photography but has also incorporated performance, drawing, video, installation, and intaglio techniques into his works.
He received an MFA from Hunter College and holds a BSc in Botany. He was part of EmergeNYC 2023, Artist in the Marketplace 2017, and Creative Capital’s Taller 2019 mentorship programs, and was included in The Bronx Museum of the Art’s Fourth Biennial. He has exhibited at the Museo de las Américas, the Clemente Soto Vélez, Bronx Art Space, Longwood Gallery, and the Liga de Estudiantes de Artes de San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 2023 he will be a resident at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Governors Island Arts Center and Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts residencies. Interested in becoming an educator, he teaches, and has taught, digital and darkroom photography, as well as media literacy at the International Center of Photography, Parsons School of Design, Art Academy of Cincinnati, Fairleigh Dickinson University, THE POINT CDC, and StrudelMediaLive.
Artist Statement
My artwork entails a process of self-discovery; a series of confessionals revealing private conflicts; hoping towards catharsis. Through this cathartic process, I hope to depathologize negative feelings so that they can be seen as a source for political action rather than its antithesis. I expose mental health issues like depression, dysmorphia, food addictions, loneliness, and internalized fatphobia: describing their mechanisms, scrutinizing their origins, and illuminating the impossibility of fixing them.
I work mainly in the photographic and performative realms as I turn my camera onto myself to scrutinize my “undesires” and compare them with my desires. Through many of my works, I toy with the idea of refusing reality and constructing a fantasy, like compositing idealized body parts on top of my own. I show both comfort and discomfort of the body through video performances speaking to commodification of cis-gender, male bodies and marginalization of fat bodies. Using a diaristic cookbook approach, I dissect negative relationships with food. By presenting a multiplicity of selves within the same photographic frame, I attempt to show self-compassion by depicting care and intimacy with myself. In speaking of the inadequacies of belonging to cis-gender, gay male communities, I dream of a queer utopia that dares to look at our ecologies of care. Using personal archives, the memoir, and performance, I painfully scrutinize the effects of bullying and internalized fatphobia on mental health.
I am very interested in the idea that talking about mental health issues can serve as an opportunity for reexamination and change, and ultimately, catharsis. Through my creative process I engage the viewer into open and productive conversations surrounding mental health that will help us deal better with these issues, thus leveling the ground on structural inequities that favor the elated. My work also crafts a queer space that accounts for depression and shame as an entry into discussions about contemporary queer culture and homosocial relationships. All in all, the works explore agency from a subjugated position of depression and othering from within queer communities.
Curriculum Vitae
Education
2021
M.F.A. – Studio Art, Photography. Hunter College, School of Arts and Sciences, The City University of New York, NY
2016
B.A. – Studio Art, Photography. Hunter College, School of Arts and Sciences, The City University of New York, NY
2001
B.S. Biological Sciences, Botany & German Minor, Cum Laude. University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico
Solo Exhibitions
2023
The Fingers Won’t Let Go, Abrons Art Center, New York, NY
The Fingers Won’t Let Go, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Arts Center at Governors Island, New York, NY
2021
The Losses, The Heartbreaks, The Hungers… Empty Set, Bronx, NY
El cuerpo todavía está experimentando / esperando cierta (in)comodidad :Pública Espacio Cultural, San Juan, PR
2006
Transiciones. Liga de Estudiantes de Artes de San Juan, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Group Exhibitions
2023
The Emotional Show. Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, Las Vegas, NV
Queer Nature. Bronx Art Space, Bronx, NY
Hold For Discussion! 621 Gallery, Tallahassee, FL
The Word Camera Means Room. 205 Project Space, Hunter College, New York, NY
Instructors Show, Manhattan Graphics Center, New York, NY
2022
Soma Grossa. Brew House Association, Pittsburgh, PA
My Body/My Battle. AAA3A, Bronx, NY
Linha de Agua, Bienal de Arte Contemporânea de Trás-os-Montes. Macedo de Cavaleiros, Portugal
2021
mirror/stage. 205 Hudson Gallery, New York, NY
Lifting Off Into the Sun. Satellite Art Club, Brooklyn, NY
Fleeting Moments: Temporality and the Still Life. Analog Forever Magazine, online
2020
Expect Some Discomfort. Empty Set, Bronx, NY
Leyline of Abundance. Puppy American, Bronx, NY
2019
Membranes. En Foco presents the Apartment Gallery series, Hamilton Landmark Galleries, New York, NY
When One Notices. The Clemente Soto Vélez, New York, NY
Los 50’s de la Liga. Museo de las Américas, San Juan, PR
>7. 621 Gallery, Tallahassee, FL
Gxrl on Grill: Amuse-Bouche. Honey’s Bar, Brooklyn, NY
Cuerpos Dislocados. concurrently at Painted Foot Studio, Philadelphia, PA, No Nation Tangential Unspace Art Lab, Chicago, IL, Liliput Galería, Puebla, México, and La K-Zona, Bogotá, Colombia
2018
met-a-mor-pho-sis. Percolate Art Space & Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA
PRINTFEST 2018. International Print Center of New York, New York, NY
Act I, Scene II. 205 Project Space, Hunter College, New York, NY
2017
Bronx Calling: The Fourth AIM Biennial. Group exhibition. The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY
Noir: Defining the Melodrama. Group exhibition. Longwood Art Gallery, Bronx, NY
Residencies and Awards
2023
Artist-in-Residence, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Arts Center at Governors Island, New York, NY
Artist-in-Residence, Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, Ithaca, NY
EmergeNYC 2023, Brooklyn Arts Exchange and Abrons Art Center, New York, NY
2021
City Artist Corps, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY
Artist-in-Residence, Bronx Art Space at Governors Island, Bronx, NY
2019
El Taller, Creative Capital, New York, NY
2017
Artist in the Marketplace, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY
2016
Training for Social Action, Training for Change, Philadelphia, PA
2015
Artist-in-Residence, Manhattan Graphics Center, New York, NY
Publications
2018
Binge Chemigrams. The Issue, Photographer’s Collective of Hunter College
2017
Bronx Calling: The Fourth AIM Biennial Catalogue. The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, NY
Wearing Bodies. Hysteria Revista! Ciudad de México
2016
Doorways. The Issue, Photographer’s Collective of Hunter College
2015
Self-Portrait Landscapes. The Issue, Photographer’s Collective of Hunter College, New York, NY
2014
Bizcochos Dominicanos. NPR’s The Salt and Feet in 2 Worlds, New York, NY