Rafael Andrés Torres (b. 1977, San Juan, Puerto Rico) is a fine art photographer whose work explores the quiet tension between beauty and structure, freedom and control. With a background in literature and linguistics, he approaches photography not only as a visual practice but also as a language of form, rhythm, and silence.

Rafael’s path to photography was unconventional. Trained in Latin American Literature and Linguistics, he first pursued graphic design before turning to the camera as a way to navigate moments of personal upheaval. What began as refuge soon transformed into a lifelong practice. His photographs—often stark, minimalist, and steeped in black-and-white tonalities—distill the noise of the world into spaces of stillness and contemplation. His influences range from the precision of Michael Kenna to the lyricism of Fan Ho, as well as the documentary spirit of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Vivian Maier.

Now based in Chicago, Rafael presented his first solo exhibition, Ĉikago (Knee Law Firm, 2025), a dual-narrative exploration of the city as both aesthetic form and engineered system. Using Chicago as his framework, he revealed the city as a site of rhythm and light, while also questioning how urban space directs, restricts, and frames those who move within it. The exhibition cemented his reputation as an artist who can balance elegance with critique, abstraction with lived experience.

Rafael’s work has been exhibited nationally, including selections for the Alaska Positive 2019 Exhibition, the Black Box Gallery (Portland), the New York Center for Photographic Art, and Perspective Gallery's Vicinity 2023 Exhibition, where he also earned membership through competitive review.

Beyond photography, Rafael is also a published writer of poetry and fiction. His literary background shapes his visual work, where titles in Esperanto function as meditations on meaning and perception. He continues to develop new projects that interweave text and image, philosophy and form.