Miguel Ángel Payano Jr.: Miguel Angel Payano Jr.

Miguel Ángel Payano Jr. (b. 1980, New York) is an Afro-Caribbean American artist who works between Beijing and New York. Drawing on a visual vernacular informed by American, Caribbean and Chinese cultures, he makes works that move between painting and sculpture and investigate class, identity formation and socialization, and storytelling. His transcultural, surrealist sensibility pairs aesthetics with humor and the grotesque, often translating and transgressing different artistic forms. Payano received a dual degree in studio art and Chinese language from Williams College in 2003, then moved to China and earned an MFA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 2008. In 2020 he received a second MFA from Hunter College in New York, where he was awarded the S&W Scholarship. His solo presentation is on view at Make Room in Los Angeles.