Miguel Angel Payano Jr.

Miguel Angel Payano Jr. (b. 1980, New York) is an Afro-Caribbean American artist working between Beijing and New York. With a visual vernacular that is informed by American, Caribbean, and Chinese cultures, he creates works that oscillate between painting and sculpture that investigate class, identity formation/socialization, and storytelling. His transcultural surrealist sensibilities bind aesthetics with humor and the grotesque, with his works often translating and transgressing different artistic forms.
Payano received a dual degree in Studio Art and Chinese Language from Williams College in Massachusetts in 2003 before moving to China and attending the renowned Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, where he graduated with an MFA in 2008. In 2020, Payano received a second MFA from New York’s own Hunter College, where he was the recipient of the S&W Scholarship. Payano’s work has been shown at Make Room Los Angeles; the LDX Contemporary Art Center, Beijing; and the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China. Recent solo exhibitions include Palate Pivots (2026) and Longest Way Round (2025) at Charles Moffett, New York; Single-Celled Humans (2024) at BANK, Shanghai; Woo-Woo (2024), his first institutional solo exhibition, at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Limbguistics (2023) at Unit London; Out From (2023) at Charles Moffett, New York; and Sojourn Summits (2022) at Galleria Poggiali, Milan. His work has been featured in group exhibitions including Not Too Late: A Benefit Exhibition (2024) at Charles Moffett, New York, and This Basic Asymmetry (2022) at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara. Miguel participated in the first edition of Ad Diriyah Biennial in Winter 2021 with a large-scale painting installation. He was an artist in residence at the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program in Brooklyn, New York (2025–2026). His work is held in collections including the Jebsen Collection, Hong Kong; Africa First, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel; and the Barilla Collection, Parma, Italy.