Triburgo, Lorenzo

American, b. 1980

BiographyLorenzo Triburgo is a photographer, educator, and LGBTQ rights activist. Their series Shimmer Shimmer consists of performative, environmental self-portraits that were created in collaboration with their partner Sarah Van Dyke during a residency at the Baxter Street Camera Club New York in 2019. During the residency, Triburgo stopped taking testosterone after 10 years of consistent use, and created photographs of their changing body covered with glitter on the beach at Jacob Riis Park in Queens, NY. This beach has long been a popular destination and place for public social gathering for queer New Yorkers. Each image in the series depicts a different pose that references common idealized depictions of women in art history. This portrait is modeled on paintings and sculptures of Venus, the Roman goddess of beauty and love, with Triburgo’s reinterpretation creating space for new and nonbinary representations of classical forms.

In Transportraits, Triburgo sets transgender men against backdrops created by following painting instructions from Bob Ross. Triburgo describes these masculine portraits as “heroic” and cites 19th century artists such as John Singer Sargent and Alfred Jacob Miller as inspirations.

Lorenzo Triburgo’s work has been exhibited in numerous venues including at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York, NY; Photoforum Pasquart, Kunst und Kulturhaus, Bern, Switzerland; Henry Art Gallery, Hammond, IN; Magazzini del Sale, Italy; and Oude Kerk, the Netherlands; among others. Triburgo received their BA in Photography and Gender Studies at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and their MFA in Photography and Related Media and the School of Visual Arts in New York City. They have taught at Oregon State University since 2013.