Miguel Ángel Payano Jr. (b. 1980, New York, lives and works in Beijing) is an Afro-Caribbean visual artist. After completing his dual B.A. degree at Williams College in Chinese Language and Studio Art in Williamstown, Massachusetts (2003), Payano moved to Beijing, where he completed his M.F.A. in Oil Painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (2008). He also obtained an M.F.A. degree in Studio Art from Hunter College, The City University of New York (2020). Having had the experience of navigating between different languages and cultures, Payano became increasingly attuned to the importance of language and its application in our understanding of and relation to one another. Though his works are mainly paintings in his earlier career, the artist has expanded his practice in recent years to embrace sculptural and quasi-sculptural forms with his distinctive peach-mouths joined with other images, textures, and found or assembled objects that form strange humanlike portraits that fuse painting and sculpture. His previous solo exhibitions include “ Out From ” (Charles Moffett, New York, USA, 2023); “ Sojourn Summits ” (Galleria Poggiali, Milan, Italy, 2022); and “ Elusive Nature ” (Make Room, Los Angeles, USA, 2021). He has also participated in group shows such as “This Basic Asymmetry” (Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, California, USA, 2022) and “Ad-Diriyah Biennale: Feeling the Stones” (Saudi Arabia, 2021).