I approach the act of posing as a form of opposition and resistance to social norms, embodying playfulness and subversion of the history of portraiture. Central to my work are explorations of orientation, lounging, entanglement, and queer desire. My practice represents a lifetime’s journey of developing a visual language to address the complexity and history of queer love, desire, gender, and touch.

David Antonio Cruz (b.1974, Philadelphia, PA) explores the complexities of queerness and race through painting, drawing, performance, and site-specific installations. Drawing on a mix of queer discourse, fashion, history, and pop culture, his work interrogates Western traditions of representation and the act of posing. Cruz’s recent solo exhibitions include stay, take your time, my love at ICA San Francisco (2025); hauntme at Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art (2025); and When The Children Come Home at ICA Philadelphia (2023). His work has been included in notable group exhibitions at ICA Boston, Newark Museum of Art, The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, El Museo del Barrio, the Ford Foundation, the Brooklyn Museum, McNay Art Museum, and the Kemper Art Museum. Cruz’s residencies and fellowships include the Joan Mitchell Center Artist-in-Residence, Skowhegan Alumni Residency, LMCC Workspace Residency, Gateway Project Spaces, BRIC Workspace Residency, the AIM Program, Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Award, and Mass Cultural Council’s Artist Fellowship. Cruz received his BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute and his MFA from Yale University. He is an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts at Columbia University and lives and works in New York City.

Selected Works