Rufus Tureen is a New York-based artist whose practice moves between painting, performance, and video. Working through invented personas — most persistently the Olde Man and the Lizard — he explores what it means to be an artist as a sustained, embodied condition rather than a professional identity. The personas emerge from the studio and are then performed, documented, and returned to painting in an ongoing loop.

Tureen received an MFA in Painting from Hunter College and a BA in Art Semiotics from Brown University. For six years he directed an artist-run exhibition space in New York, developing a program rooted in his commitments as a working artist. He has taught at the University of Texas at Austin and collaborated with performance artist Michael Smith.

Recent work includes Baby Ikki takes The Lizard (2026), a video collaboration developed in Austin, TX, and an ongoing painting practice running in parallel with live performance.

Solo
2021 — Rufus Tureen: Type, Essex Flowers, New York, NY
2019 — AM I WHO I WAS, LL Art Projects, Shanghai, China
2019 — Moderne Man, Essex Flowers, New York, NY
2018 — Olde Man, Essex Flowers, New York, NY

Group
2025 — A Human Mountain, Essex Flowers, New York, NY
2025 — New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA), New York, NY
2021 — The Big Show, My Pet Ram, New York, NY
2018 — Slummer Nights, CANADA, New York, NY
2015 — With Courtesy The Artist, The Kitchen, New York, NY
2014 — Dear Jesus, do Something!, Cecilia Hilstrom Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden

Performance
2025 — The Lizard, House Party, New York, NY
2019 — Am I Who I Was, LL Art Projects, Shanghai, Ningbo, China
2018 — Lizard Prints, Dixon Place, New York, NY
2017 — LIZARD/DOG/MAN, Essex Flowers, New York, NY
2016 — The Sublime and the Mundane, FiveMyles, Brooklyn, NY (curated by Jasmine Murrell)

Curatorial
2024 — Manila: Andrea Blum, Essex Flowers, New York, NY
2023 — Wander Any Way, Samara and Tuli Kupferberg, Essex Flowers, New York, NY
2022 — ill-suited: Seung-Min Lee and Michael Smith, Essex Flowers, New York, NY

Teaching
2025 — Guest Instructor, University of Texas, Austin
2022 — Guest Instructor, University of Texas, Austin
2019 — Adjunct Assistant Professor, Hunter College, New York