“Authoring new Epics for contemporary audiences.”

Ivan Forde is a contemporary artist based in New York City, working across photography, printmaking, collage, sound performance, and installation. The artist performs for the camera often outdoors or in the studio, framing himself as protagonist, antagonist, and chimerical human/animal hybrids navigating the antique structures of epic poetry to redefine contemporary notions of migration(s), memory, homeland(s) and idenity(ies) . Forde’s non-linear analysis of classic poetry about the origin of nature, the ocean, human culture, life and death, opens the possibility of reformed archetypes, alternative endings, and new beginnings. By crafting new visual epics, often depicted in shades of blue cyanotype, Forde intertwines the personal and the global to offer a transformative view of prevailing narratives that unite us across cultures, geographies and time.

Ivan has held performances at The Kitchen, The Jewish Museum, and The Whitney Museum. Select Institutional Group Exhibitions include the Smithsonian National African American Museum Of History And Culture, Columbia University’s Wallach Gallery, Syracuse University Palitz gallery, MICA, MCA Chicago, The Studio Museum, and Ingrid Deusse Gallery in Antwerp. Forde is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including the Powerhouse Arts Inaugural AIR fellowship (2023), Whitney Independent Study Program (2022), the 2020 Emerging Artist Award by Baxter Street Camera Club of New York, the Civitella Ranieri visual arts fellowship (2019) and the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans (2017). Residencies include the Lower East Side Printshop, YADDO, Pioneer Works, Vermont studio center, and ACRE Projects Chicago. Ivan teaches at Columbia University and SUNY Purchase College. Forde’s work is represented in numerous collections including Syracuse University Art Museum, The Studio Museum, The Escalate collection at Chapman University, and the 7G Foundation. contact: ivan.L.forde@gmail.com