Kenny Rivero (born 1981, Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York) is a Dominican-American visual artist who makes paintings, drawings, and sculptures that explore the complexity of identity through narrative images, collage and assemblage, language, and symbolism.
His paintings often include elements of assemblage, using objects of personal significance, often cherished mementos, or pieces of New York City, for instance, "Old cigarette packs salvaged from the Gramercy building where he worked as a doorman, dominoes fresh from a match: Each of his three-dimensional canvases are a layered "memory palette" [...].
[...] Rivero's piece is full of lovely painterly effects, from the thickening series of lines that make up the figure's fan-like hair to the precise, Op art-ish grid of brick outlines.
"[8] And in the Brooklyn Rail, Alex Jen describes It Happened on the Corner (2014), on view in Lure of the Dark At Mass MoCA in 2019, "a man lies sick on the ground as pairs of scuffed oxfords walk past.
Jen continues by describing the symbolism in another painting, Ask About Me (2017), "A nervous, coded pictograph of one's personal interiors, little crosses mark graves in the dark among pyramids, faceted gems, and empty cars.