Chris Bogia

Session 5, Week 2: August 21-27, 2022

Chris Bogia’s work reflects an ongoing interest in interior design and decorative art. As Bogia says, “My work sits in a queer space between contemporary art and decorative art, courting and resisting both worlds simultaneously”. Formally, Bogia’s work spans works on paper, textiles, and sculpture, frequently incorporating individually hand-laid strands of yarn into the surfaces of his work. Thematically, Bogia says: “I like to work on a primary subject as a series for an extended amount of time like bonsai trees, fountains, or mandalas, contemplating their potential as cultural and poetic symbols while investigating their forms through repeated design and color iterations until I feel I have extracted and imbued enough depth of meaning and visual delight in equal measure.” Bogia received his BFA at New York University and MFA from Yale University. He currently lives in Queens, New York. Bogia is the recipient of a 2018 grant from the Pollack-Krasner Foundation, a 2018 Queens Council for the Arts Grant, the 2017 Rema Hort Mann Foundation’s Artist Community Engagement Grant, the 2015 Tiffany Foundation Grant, and was an artist-in-resident at the Queens Museum Studio Program from 2016 to 2018. Recent exhibitions include a 2021 public project with Art in Buildings in New York a solo presentation at Mrs. Gallery, Chicago, 2019; group exhibitions at Hesse Flatow, New York Primary, Miami; RUSCHMAN, Chicago; The Public Art Fund, New York Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles; Bric, Brooklyn; Mrs. Gallery; The New Museum; and a presentation at NADA with Mrs. Gallery in 2020. Bogia is the co-founder of Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR), the first LGBTQ artist residency in the world, located in Cherry Grove on Fire Island, and was FIAR’s acting director from 2011-2020. He is currently an instructor of sculpture at New York University.

Chris Bogia, Libra, 2018, wood, steel, yarn, raffia, grasscloth, walnut veneer, jute rug, 71 x 84 x 30 inches