HESSE FLATOW presents i still look for her in every lifetime, the debut solo exhibition of New York-based artist Andina Marie Osorio. This exhibition marks a significant moment in Osorio’s ongoing exploration of memory, identity, queer affect, migration, and Black femme sexual politics, expressed through a distinct blend of assemblage, self-portraiture, and archival work rooted in familial and queer experiences. The show features a new body of work, including a wall installation of photographic works, accompanied by galvanized steel wall sculptures holding family photographs, archival materials, and the artist’s ephemera.
Osorio’s practice has long embraced the role of familial archivist, gathering photographs and memorabilia that span multiple generations, some dating as far back as 1931. Through this intimate archival lens, Osorio reflects on her grandfather’s migration from Puerto Rico to New York City, her mother’s 1970s childhood in the East Bronx, pairing family snapshots, worker IDs, and evanescent moments with her own queer portraits. These collages create a vivid mosaic, unpacking the intersections of cultural heritage, familial ties, and queer existence.
In i still look for her in every lifetime, Osorio invites viewers into the nuanced spaces between these images, moments suspended in the tension of what is withheld, where the glance never fully reciprocates. The exhibition includes works shot around the artist’s own communities of friends and loved ones, particularly in Brooklyn and Fire Island, New York—two locations integral to Osorio’s personal and creative worlds. This grounding in her intimate surroundings emphasizes the deeply relational and embodied nature of her work.
A key piece in the exhibition, Untitled (all i do is dream of you) (2025), depicts two figures in repose, facing outward in a moment of quiet reflection. The tender yet elusive composition invites contemplation of how presence and absence coexist—two figures connected through shared space but separated in their silent gazes. Here, Osorio foregrounds the complexity of connection and the space between longing and fulfillment.
Borrowing from the visual language of Caribbean-inspired iron gate architecture, Osorio has constructed a steel apparatus that serves as both the physical structure housing her assemblages and a reflective surface. This reflective material not only holds these intimate archives but also invites viewers to turn inward, mirroring the introspection embedded in the work itself. In doing so, Osorio crafts an experience that challenges the boundaries between art, memory, and self-reflection, offering a platform for viewers to question their own embodied subjectivities and the nuanced dynamics of gender and desire.
Through these assemblages, Osorio subverts conventional modes of queer self-representation, positioning the act of looking as both a question and a possibility. The averted gaze, often present in her works, speaks to the erotic potential of the chance glance—an act of resistance against the objectification of queer bodies. These works underscore the belief that true understanding of queerness requires a look inward, acknowledging both the yearning within and the fact that seeing a figure’s face does not equate to truly knowing them.
At the heart of i still look for her in every lifetime is a meditation on the trails left by ephemera—those traces of feeling that give rise to new histories and possibilities. In each image, Osorio challenges us to look beyond the surface, to invite speculation and allow new narratives to emerge. Through this lens, Osorio’s work becomes an invitation: a call to engage with the past, reflect on the present, and imagine new, complex futures.
