Bio

Daniel Rumsey is a multidisciplinary artist working in Boston, Massachusetts. His work is inspired by representations of the male body across art history, focusing on painters from 20th century America including: Jared French, Paul Cadmus, Edward Hopper, and Thomas Hart Benton. Daniel Rumsey’s passion for pop art and social realism combine to form graphic work that explores queer and American identity through large scale installations. His work explores photography as a tool in documenting work and the gap between photo and reality. Through painting and video, Rumsey inhabits personas that explore stereotypes of masculinity held in high regard by the gay community. Alternative surfaces are explored in his painting practice as the fragility of surfaces not intended for art making relates to the temporality of the queer body. In conversation with works from American art history, Daniel Rumsey depicts his own body as a product of history through a queer lens. Daniel Rumsey views his art making process as a tool to connect with history and illuminate forgotten stories of queer ancestors.