Expat
Expat is a series of photographs that study the phenomenon of expatriates in the United States of America. Being a Venezuelan expatriate who decided to immigrate looking for new opportunities and a better education interested me in the other stories that people have to tell.
During the project I had the opportunity to photograph people from Colombia to Mozambique and from Nigeria to China, portraying their different cultures and how they still manifest far away from home. People who come to complete a dream of education or just people who leave looking for a better place to live and work is what accomplishes the series. I juxtapox their culture within the space they now live, trying to show the differences and how its hard to loose your cultural heritage.
© Francisco Gonzalez
© Francisco Gonzalez
© Francisco Gonzalez
Francisco Gonzalez, an internationally exhibited portrait photographer, was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1991. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) on May 2015. His work has been exhibited in different galleries around the world, in countries such as Hong Kong, Venezuela and USA. One of his most recent exhibits was his Solo show at Oglethorpe Gallery in Savannah, Georgia during June 2015 with his newest body of work, Expat. Also, some of his pieces belong to the permanent collection of his alma mater, SCAD. In collaboration with another artist, Francisco received an award for coming in second in the Herman Miller Student Video Contest 2015. In April 2015 the book Classic Tailoring Techniques for Menswear was published. Francisco collaborated with the author Denis Antoine to document the process. They worked together for several months and as a result over 95% of the photographs that appear on the book were taken by him. His pieces are inspired by the cultural landscape in which he practices, and portray different cultural matters. His art is a study of the past, present and future of society, represented through different subjects such as architecture, youth and fashion. Francisco finds inspiration in his own experiences and uses it to create the narrative he wants to tell. Through his photography he begins to understand both himself and his humanity at a much deeper level. Francisco is currently living and working in Miami, Florida as a commercial photographer as he continues to develop his career as an artist.
all images and text © Francisco Gonzalez