Torkwase Dyson View Profile
Torkwase Dyson describes herself as a painter working across multiple mediums to explore the continuity between ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. She frequently creates compositions of three “hypershapes”—a rectangular box, a triangle, and a trapezoid. Each form references a historical person who escaped confinement through a space of that shape: for example, Harriet Jacobs, who spent seven years in a trapezoidal attic crawlspace. As representations of spaces used for escape, migration, and transformation, Dyson’s hypershapes embody a Black experience defined by constant shapeshifting and change.
Dyson has been lauded with major outdoor commissions at Desert X, Palm Desert, California (2023); Counterpublic in St. Louis, Missouri (2023); and the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of the Whitney Biennial 2024.
Dyson studied Sociology, Social Work, and Fine Arts at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, and received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in 1999 and an MFA from the Yale School of Art in New Haven, CT, in 2003. She has held one-artist exhibitions at Graham Foundation, Chicago (2018); The Drawing Center, New York (2018); New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana (2020); Serpentine Pavilion, Serpentine Galleries, London (2021); Hall Art Foundation, Schloss Derneburg, Germany (2021); Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri (2023); and ‘T’ Space, Rhinebeck, NY (2023); among others. Dyson was also part of the 13th Shanghai Biennale (2021); 12th Liverpool Biennial, England (2023); 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Seoul Museum of Art (2023); and the Whitney Biennial 2024, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City. Dyson will create the conceptual design for Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, the Costume Institute’s Spring 2025 exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
Dyson’s work is held in notable public collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; Hall Art Foundation, Reading, VT; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Long Museum, Shanghai; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, MA; Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis; and Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City, among others.
(as of 2025)
