Lionel Cruet was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and currently lives and works in both New York City and San Juan. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from La Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño in Puerto Rico and a Master of Fine Arts in Digital Interdisciplinary Art Practice and a Master of Education from CUNY – The City College of New York. In 2013, Cruet was the recipient of the Juan Downey Audiovisual Award at the 11th Media Arts Biennale at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago, Chile. In 2018, he was a Fellow at the Socrates Sculpture Park in New York City and a fellow from The Laundromat Project, an organization that focuses on the arts and social engagement in New York City. In 2021, he continued research for art projects at a residency in the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito, Ecuador.
Cruet works in multiple mediums, including experimental digital printing processes, performance, and audiovisual installations. His artworks confront issues that concern ecology, geopolitics, and technology. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Bronx Museum of the Arts (2017), Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse (2017) and a solo exhibition at the Bronx River Art Center (2015) and El Lobi in San Juan Puerto Rico (2021) and has been reviewed by Latinx Project, Made in Mind Magazine, Designboom, and Latinx Spaces. He has also participated in artist residencies including Art Omi (2018) and SHIFT 2022 at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. In addition, Cruet works with the New York City Department of Education, as well as multiple nonprofits that promote art and aesthetic education for inner-city immigrant youth. In 2020, he co-founded an independent art organization in Puerto Rico, banasta: residencia artistica, which offers an artist residency and sessions of art criticism to develop the artist’s production.
Photo by Lionel Cruet