Collection: Francisco-Fernando Granados

Francisco-Fernando Granados was born in Guatemala and lives in Toronto. Since 2005, his practice has traced his movement from convention refugee to critical citizen, using abstraction performatively, site-specifically, and relationally to create projects that challenge the stability of practices of recognition.

Created during the Nick Novak Mid-Career Residency at Open Studio, mapa mundi (study for extended intersections) recontextualizes a key composition from the artist’s ongoing archive of more than 400 abstract drawings into a varied edition exploring different kinds of paper support, as well as hand-colouring. These drawings are developed digitally through the layering of gestures, resulting in interlocking geometries. Workbook (randomized) samples readymade elements excerpted from Guatemalan calligraphy workbooks authored by Jaime F. Sanchez into an all-over composition generated by an algorithm. The workbooks are familiar to the artist as part of his elementary education before coming to Canada.