Francisco-Fernando Granados

Francisco-Fernando Granados was born in Guatemala and divides his time between Toronto, Dish With One Spoon Territory and New Westminster on the unceded and unsurrendered land of the Halkomelem speaking peoples. Since 2005, his practice has traced a movement from Convention refugee to critical citizen, enacting abstraction site-specifically and relationally to create projects that challenge the stability of practices of recognition. His work has developed from the intersection of formal painterly training, working in performance through artist-run spaces, the study of queer and feminist theory, and early activism as a peer support worker with immigrant and refugee communities in Coast Salish Territories. This layering of experiences trained his intuitions to seek context-responsive approaches, alternative forms of distribution, and the weaving of lyrical and critical propositions. 

Key projects include 'confluence' (2021-26), a permanent public artwork located at the Cumberland St. entrance of Bay Station on the TTC in Toronto; ‘who claims abstraction?’ (2023-24) a solo exhibition and artist book produced with SFU Galleries for its downtown Vancouver campus; and ‘foreward’ (2021-23), a series of site specific installations in dialogue with the permanent collection at The MacLaren Art Centre (Barrie ON).