Elle Pérez creates photographs and moving images imbued with desire, care, and a deep sensitivity to intimate moments and emotional exchanges. Often working collaboratively with their subjects, Pérez explores the ever-changing nature of identity while using the camera to uncover accidental and incidental poetics within daily life, transforming the seemingly mundane into something profoundly expressive.
Their work has been exhibited across the United States and internationally, and has been the subject of institutional solo exhibitions at MASS MoCA (2023); the Baltimore Museum of Art (2022); the Carnegie Museum of Art (2021); Public Art Fund (2019); and MoMA PS1 (2018). Perez’s work has been included in group exhibitions at the Renaissance Society, Chicago; Barbican Centre, London; Brooklyn Museum, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
While at MacDowell, they worked on editing two film projects, Shaper and Until Sunrise. Shaper is a 16mm film that records the decaying infrastructure of the New York City subway as the city experiences increasingly intense flooding. Until Sunrise weaves together multiple nights of footage of the Brooklyn party Papi Juice. The camera follows along as the party starts to end at 3:00 a.m., a witness to the entangled labor of the DJs, lighting techs, bartenders, emcees, set designers, and dancers as sunrise approaches. Both films will be included in a forthcoming exhibition at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in Spring 2025.
