ABOUT
Ari Karafiol (b. 2001) is a transsexual, transdisciplinary artist and educator raised and based in Chicago, IL. In 2024, he earned his Bachelor’s of Fine Arts with a dual emphasis in Printmaking and Fiber and Materials Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ari has exhibited work and developed public programming in numerous cultural instutions, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The St. Louis Artists’ Guild, and the Research House for Asian Art. He currently works as an educator at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Marwen, and Lillstreet Art Center.
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How do we remain legible to those we want to see us, without becoming either assimilated or erased? Drawing upon my practices of transsexual manhood, Jewish antizionism, and stubborn queerness, I interrogate colonial masculinity and material culture in service of expansive futures. I use iterative processes to transform the images, materials, and aesthetics of Western men’s fashion and sexuality, appropriating and subverting their cultural connotations. Found materials and images ground my work in the present world, providing a lens through which to reflect on the reverberations of the past, and refract new possibilities for the future. I integrate these material transformations with storytelling, incorporating personal narrative or historical archive to carefully reveal (or obscure) queer stories. I am inspired by queer methods of flamboyance, codes, humor, and double entrendre as techniques for survival, resistance, and intimate connection.