Born in Annapolis, Maryland in 1993, Fratino earned his BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2015. He subsequently received a Yale Norfolk Painting Fellowship in 2014 and a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Berlin in 2015. Emerging in the late 2010s, he gained critical acclaim for his distinct visual vocabulary, often incorporating rich colour, expressive mark-making and a synthesised semi-Cubist style across oil on canvas, soft pastel on raw linen and copperplate etching.
Throughout his practice, Fratino draws on the quiet rituals of daily life, memory and shared interior spaces, depicting lovers, friends and himself with tender vulnerability. His work takes on modernist masters such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marsden Hartley and Georgia O'Keeffe — sharing a conceptual dialogue with peers such as Salman Toor and Doron Langberg in adapting historical modes of still life, portraiture and the male nude to centre contemporary queer identity.
Landmark projects and exhibitions include his inclusion in the Central Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024), his first institutional solo exhibition Satura at the Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato (2024) and the major museum exhibition Fratino and Matisse: To See This Light Again at the Baltimore Museum of Art (2026). His work is held in permanent collections worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Art Institute of Chicago and the British Museum in London.
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
You and Your Things
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Flower Market
LOUIS FRATINO (B.1993)
Tristan Drinking Soup
LOUIS FRATINO (B.1993)
Hannah's bathroom
LOUIS FRATINO (B.1993)
Euchre
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Listening to a conch
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Night Train
LOUIS FRATINO (B.1993)
Maryland Summer Storm
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Looking back, crying
LOUIS FRATINO (B.1993)
Wet Lonely Morning
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Mom Reading a Newspaper
路易斯·弗拉蒂諾 (1993年生)
夜間十一點，關燈
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Turning the Light Off, 11 pm
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Morning After Snow
LOUIS FRATINO (B.1993)
Couple
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Gray Couple
LOUIS FRATINO (B.1993)
Portrait
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Fra and Rena
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Andrea in the Car
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
After Martin Ramirez
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Untitled
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Untitled
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Torso
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Torso
LOUIS FRATINO (b.1993)
Salute
LOUIS FRATINO (b.1993)
Self-Portrait with Amaryllis
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Two Views
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Untitled
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Standing nude in the sea
LOUIS FRATINO (B. 1993)
Asleep on Laundry