co-respond-dance- Version II (2020). Artist book, 54 pages; limited edition of 200 copies. Published by Centre des arts actuels Skol, Montreal. 

The book includes compositions from the ‘letters’ series. Oscillating between the alphabetic and the epistolary, each ‘letter’ is part of an ongoing body of work consisting of more than 300 drawings that aim to synthesize a broad range of abstract compositional strategies. 

In response to the safety measures implemented to contain COVID-19, my initial plan for an installation at Skol shifted to become mobile and accessible; it became an artist book (distributed through the gallery and by mail) accompanied by poetic and movement-based performances by guest collaborators k.g. Guttman and Kama La Mackerel. Conceptually, the project responds to the state of emergency created by the pandemic by taking clues from two aesthetic methodologies. The first is the use of mail art for political work by artists resisting dictatorships in Latin America during the 20th century. The second is a French feminine literary practice, in which known aristocratic women (Margot de Valois, La Grande Mademoiselle, Madame de Pompadour, etc.) would have their personal correspondences published. I am interested in how these writings made the intimate public. I aim to inhabits this form critically, posing the question of what it would mean to turn abstraction into an everyday language.

duet: Jack Bush + Francisco-Fernando Granados (2019-20). Two person exhibition at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa and Art Gallery of Peterborough. Curated by Fynn Leitch and Leila Timmins.

The installation pairs up paintings and prints from the mid-twentieth century with contemporary site-specific drawings and digital works in order to engage in questions of difference and continuity across generations of artists working through abstraction in Canada. duet stages a dialogue between compositional approaches that is neither patrilineal nor adversarial, but that allows Bush and I to make contact across time.

towards a minor abstraction (2016-ongoing). Digital drawings with multidisciplinary translations.

towards a minor abstraction consists of a cumulative series of more than 150 small digital drawings created through Drawing Desk, a free app for touch-screen phone. Beginning as an exercise in gesture and composition, this project takes up drawing, my first aesthetic language, at a point in my practice where more established conceptual and theoretical forms of working failed me in the face of personal loss and political turmoil. The drawings developed over the past 10 months share linear, non-objective qualities, and palettes that attempt asymmetrical harmonies through the use of complimentary colours. 

To pose the question of non-objective abstraction in the present brings up critical issues of translation for such work, both as a curatorial concern in the museum context and in terms of how critically- and contextually-minded artists may make use of such strategies in the present context, where visibility and identity have become not just tools for liberation, but also mechanisms of repression.

towards a minor abstraction (Translation 1). Performance lecture, 21 minutes. Performed as part of the Queer Political Theologies Symposium at the University of Toronto, organized by Ricky Varghese, David K. Seitz, and Fan Wu. Link to video documentation here. 

a brother is both self and other (2017). Inkjet print on vinyl, 68 x 119 ins. Created with technical support from Kurt Kraler and Manolo Lugo. Commissioned by Mercer Union, a centre for contemporary art as part of the SPACE series. Curated by Georgina Jackson.

Photograph by Toni Hafkenscheid.

refugees run the seas... (2014-15). Rectified readymade, public art project. Billboard, postcard; dimensions variable. Created with the technical support of Kurt Kraler and Manolo Lugo.

A blue colour field captioned with the last line of Wyclef Jean’s rap in Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie.

'refugees run the seas...' is a billboard project that draws and diverts from pop culture as a way to invite the viewer to imagine an incalculable future where justice for migrants exists. The work consists of a blue colour field captioned with the phrase ‘refugees run the seas cause we own our own votes.’ The text plays with the last line from Wyclef Jean's rap in Shakira's 2006 song Hips Don't Lie. Shifting “boats” into “votes” as if misheard or mispronounced, the work simultaneously evokes painful past and present scenes of harrowing escape while allowing the possibility of a time to come when those seeking refuge will make their voices count. The blue that frames the text comes from a photograph of the sky above the billboard taken during the day. 

'refugees run the seas…' inverts the logic dominance that keeps migrant bodies beyond the lines of social mobility. Territory turns to ocean, day turns into night, and displaced bodies turn into agents of movement, rather than victims. The notion of movement is also found in the trace of the phrase's original context, which alludes to sensuality and opens up the work to potential queer readings.

Exhibition History:

Htous / Htron: The New Coordinates for America – Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, Toronto. Curated by Agustín Pérez Rubio.

Migrations and Movement: Close Together – Voices Breaking Boundaries, Houston, USA
Queering the International, Queer Arts Festival, Vancouver, 2014. Curated by Laiwan.

NEW PRIMARIES (2014). Digital print on canvas; 12 x 12 inches. 

A proposition to expand the field of aesthetic education. 

Exhibition History: 

Take Home the Unknown – SAVAC, Toronto, 2014.

true colours (2014). Participatory public art project in collaboration with York University students; commissioned by the Art Gallery of York University for WorldPride Toronto. Acrylic on canvas, two panels; 5 x 48 feet each panel. Photographs by Francisco-Fernando Granados; installation image courtesy of the Art Gallery of York University.

Through a participatory process, the project repurposes the aesthetics of geometric abstraction in order to randomize the palette of LGBT and queer Pride flags.

Exhibition History:

WorldPride Parade, Toronto, 2014. Curated by Suzanne Carte.