BIO

Esaí Alfredo Figueroa Ruiz (b. 1997) is a multidisciplinary artist from Yabucoa, Puerto Rico. He began making art at an early age by copying scenes from movies to paper, which would significantly influence his current work. 

From 2011 to 2015, Esaí attended Escuela Especializada En Bellas Artes Anita Otero, in Humacao, Puerto Rico. During those years, he began using art as a medium of expression and communication, focusing primarily on his experience as a queer person. After finishing high school, he took advanced drawing courses at Atelier San Juan, under the guidance of Luis Borrero and Amber Lea Kloppel. The following year he was admitted to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he graduated with a BFA in illustration and painting (2020). 

Solo presentations include Caminos Hacia El Mundo Nocturno/Roads to the Nocturnal World (Upcoming) at The Armory Show, SOLO sector, Mundo Nocturno/Nocturnal World (2023) at Art Basel Miami Beach, Positions sector, ANOCHECER/NIGHTFALL (2022) at Spinello Projects and Lo Que Paso en Yabucoa (2021), at Embajada Gallery in San Juan, PR.

 His work is housed in the permanent collection of ICA Miami, the Hort Family Collection (NY), and the Hope Foundation (FL). 

He is represented by Spinello Projects, and is currently based in Miami, FL.

To this day, I vividly remember the glow I noticed on the horizon through an airplane window. The lights of a distant city illuminated the sky as if the morning had approached. That night, I became aware of one of our impacts on nature. In this case, how light pollution has erased the starry skies from our minds. 

 This has been the subject matter of my work for the past three years. While each series of images I have created tells a unique story, light pollution and the detachment of humankind from the cosmos is always a vital element in my stories. My thesis presentation, Mundo Nocturno, is a short visual story based on my transition from a rural town with starry nights into a city. A city where the lights of skyscrapers are the only thing resembling the stars. My next series of paintings, Lo Que Paso En Yabucoa, is about a sudden nocturnal invasion, which begins with mysterious events and signs occurring in the night sky. But, in a world where the sky is full of artificial artifacts, how can we distinguish between objects made by humans and those made by outside intelligence?   

My current project in development is inspired by the short story Nightfall (1941), written by Isaac Asimov. In this, a civilization living in eternal daytime suddenly witnesses an eclipse that reveals the stars for the first time. 

ESAÍ ALFREDO,

B. 1997, Caguas, Puerto Rico

Lives and works in Yabucoa

EDUCATION

2016 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Illustration Major. PAFA The Pennsylvania

Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA

2015 Atelier San Juan, San Juan, PR

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2024 Caminos Hacia El Mundo Nocturno, Spinello Projects, The Armory Show, New York, NY (Upcoming)

2023 Mundo Nocturno, Spinello Projects, Art Basel Miami Beach, Positions

Sector, Miami, FL

2022 Nightfall, Spinello Projects, Miami, FL

2021 Lo Que Paso En Yabucoa, Embajada, San Juan, PR

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2022 FPAFA Virtual Show, Fellowship of PAFA Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

(Online)

2022 5 To Watch, Avery Galleries, Bryn Mawr, PA

2021 Earth Is A Sinking Ship, Embajada, NADA Miami, Miami, FL

2021 Aliento Fecundo, Galeria Castro Barreto, San Juan, PR

2021 A Complex Embodiment: An Exhibition of Black, BIPOC, Queer, Trans

Femme Art, Los Angeles, CA

2021 Coming Out, Mads Art Gallery, Milan, Italy

2021 The Privilege of Getting Together, Anna Zorina Gallery, New York, NY

2020 15th Annual Group Art Exhibition, William Way LGBT Community

Center, Philadelphia, PA

2020 TENSES: Queer Bodies Trough Time, William Way LGBT Community

Center, Philadelphia, PA

2019 Beer Coaster Show, Isabela, PR

2019 Roots Of The Past Saving The Future, Wilmington, DE

SCHOLARSHIPS

2020 Barnes-de Mazia Scholarship

2019 The Raymond D. & Estelle Rubens Travel Scholarship

2017 Hannah Shickley Memorial Scholarship

COLLECTIONS

2023 Hort Family Collection, NY

2022 ICA Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL

2020 William Way LGBT Community Center, Philadelphia, PA