Biography

Adrián Viajero Román is an interdisciplinary artist and advocate living and working between Brooklyn, NY, and the island-archipelago of Puerto Rico. His practice spans portraiture, assemblage, installation, painting, and sculpture, and explores issues of race, migration, memory, sacred materiality, and identity. Through his signature fusion of drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation, Román reimagines traditional portraiture by creating environments that offer potent cultural and historical context for understanding the current socio-political issues faced by Puerto Rican community members on the island and in New York City. He is as dedicated to paying homage to complex narratives of collective and individual strength, resistance, resilience, and dignity as he is committed to confronting the systemic issues his communities are up against.

Román was a finalist in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Portrait Competition in 2016, and the winner of the Outwin’s 2016 People’s Choice Award. He has presented solo exhibitions at the El Museo Del Barrio, New York, NY; Seed on Diamond Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Blind Whino Gallery, Washington DC; Este Lado De Paraíso Taller Puertoriqueño, Philadelphia, PA; ArtWhino, National Harbor MD; Ashay Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; and Galeria Candela, San Juan, PR.

Román has exhibited in group shows at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; the Nathan Cummings Foundation, New York, NY; the Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, NC; El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; Museum of South Texas, Corpus Cristi, TX; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA; African American Museum, Philadelphia PA; Sala Municipal De Exposiciones De San Sebastián, San Sebastian, PR; and the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture, Chicago, IL; Caguas Museum of Art, Caguas, PR; and the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, New York NY, among others.

He completed a residency with Google X in 2016, and a Facebook Artist in Residency in 2017 with a permanent installation at their NYC headquarters. He also was Facebook’s first artist in residence to exhibit in their public display space at their headquarters in 2020. Román regularly facilitates public offerings such as this Dia de Muertos Ofrenda presented in partnership with the Bard Graduate Center at Green-Wood Cemetery.

Artist Statement

My work is informed by issues of race, migration, and identity while exploring both the personal and historical memory of the two disparate worlds that I inhabit: the tropical landscape of Puerto Rico and the overpopulated cityscape of New York.

My practice combines drawing, painting, and sculpture within immersive installation environments composed of objects collected from different communities, from salvaged wood and window frames to historic artifacts and vintage photographs. The resulting environments can fill an entire wall or an entire room, and often incorporate sound and aromatics that draw upon the history and memory embedded in the objects. I’m interested in the continuity of time, and in how these interventions may bring these living histories forward to the present.

The fact that most of the objects I use in my practice are found or reclaimed heirlooms plays a critical role. Personal belongings and things left behind tell important stories of lineage and migration that must not be forgotten or erased. These objects are presented as portals to particular moments, movements, people, and places; as sacred material. In this way, a given work acts both as a living archive and as an altar that pays homage to Puerto Rico’s intersecting diasporic histories.

I often center elders in my work; I’m drawn to the ways they command reverence and embody cultural history. “Caja de Memoria Viva II: Constancia Colon Clemente,” is an example of an installation-portrait that features heirloom objects. Constancia’s powerful Black Puerto Rican pride and matriarchal presence were the inspiration for this living memory box. This work necessitates that viewers look up to the subject, and invites them to see inside her head. In her head, one encounters distinctive objects that are inextricably entangled with Costancia’’s life and identity.

Cultural codes, symbols, and iconography support my ability to ground my work in shared genealogies. For example, the word “Kokabola,” is a hand-carved coconut mask whose title is a Lingala word that means to divide, or to share, referencing the many survival and craft skills––including the skill of hand carving––that are shared by Taínos and Africans. The mask’s design was inspired by traditional Vejigante and Congolese mask colors, markings, and shapes, representing the influence and pride of African heritage in Puerto Rico.

As a whole, I want my body of work to tell Puerto Rican stories that otherwise wouldn’t be told. And by telling them, I hope to inspire empathy, respect, action, and justice for Puerto Rican communities on the island and throughout the diaspora.