Born and raised in the Bronx, Angel Abreu is a multidisciplinary artist whose work moves between painting, literature, and education. He is currently based in South Portland, Maine, and maintains his studio practice in Biddeford. Abreu is best known for his long-standing collaboration with Tim Rollins and K.O.S. (Kids of Survival). Following Rollins’s passing in 2017, Abreu co-founded Studio K.O.S., continuing the collaborative’s legacy through both studio practice and educational work.
Abreu’s work operates under the broader framework of Abreu Projects, an umbrella that brings together his individual studio practice, collaborative work through Studio K.O.S., and his teaching and writing. Rather than separating these modes, Abreu Projects reflects a belief that art, education, and collaboration are part of the same ongoing inquiry. Much of his practice grows out of collaborative spaces, especially workshops with young people, where visual art and pedagogy overlap. The moments of discovery that emerge in these settings often carry forward into his studio and writing as a way of reflecting on and distilling shared experience.
His work is informed by questions of access, authorship, and education, drawing on thinkers such as bell hooks, John Dewey, and Paulo Freire. A recent body of work draws from James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, exploring race, resilience, and identity in the United States, and was exhibited in April 2024 under the Studio K.O.S. umbrella at Maureen Paley in Hove, UK.
Current projects include a collaboration with the University of Massachusetts Amherst that uses Percival Everett’s James as a creative and pedagogical framework, re-centering Jim’s journey from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a story of inner and outer life, survival, and self-emancipation. He recently completed a project with New York City Center, working with high school students from Brotherhood/Sister Sol in Harlem on a large-scale work inspired by Leonard Bernstein’s Wonderful Town.
Across his studio and collaborative practices, Abreu’s work is represented in more than 120 institutional collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, and has been shown at venues such as the Walker Art Center, Tate Modern, and the Bronx Museum of the Arts. He currently serves as Chair of the MFA Art Practice program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Abreu previously taught studio art and philosophy at Deerfield Academy from 2020 to 2025 and has recently joined the faculty at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.