Torkwase Dyson (b. 1973 Chicago, IL; lives and works in Beacon, NY) combines expressive mark-making and geometric abstractions to explore continuity between ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. Working in painting, drawing, sculpture and sound, Dyson interrogates the built environment, exploring how individuals, particularly black and brown people, negotiate, negate, and transfer systems of spatial order. Throughout her work and research, Dyson confronts issues of environmental liberation and envisions a path toward a more equitable future.
Dyson studied sociology and social work at Tougaloo College, Mississippi (1996), and received a BFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University (1999) and an MFA in Painting from Yale University School of Art (2003). In 2026, Dyson will debut a commissioned work as a featured artist for the 59th Carnegie International, as well as a new installation for the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. She will also have her first solo exhibition in Austria at Kunsthaus Bregenz.
Her work has been the focus of numerous institutional solo exhibitions, including at ‘T’ Space Rhinebeck, New York (2023); Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Missouri (2023); Hall Art Foundation, Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneburg, Germany (2021–2022); Serpentine Galleries, London (2021); New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana (2020); Colby College Museum of Art, Maine (2019); Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago (2018); and The Drawing Center, New York (2018). Dyson has participated in the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2010, 2024); Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo (2023); Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2023); Counterpublic Triennial, St. Louis, (2023); Desert X, Coachella Valley (2023); Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul (2023); and the Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2021).
Dyson premiered her first major public artwork, Akua, in Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York, organized by Public Art Fund (2025–2026). The artist created the conceptual design for Superfine: Tailoring Black Style at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2025).
Public collections include the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Hall Art Foundation, Reading, Vermont; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Long Museum, Shanghai, China; Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Massachusetts; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Tennessee; Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts; National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York; and Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts.
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