Francisco-Fernando Granados
Francisco-Fernando Granados was born in Guatemala City and lives in Toronto, Dish With One Spoon Territory. Since 2005, his practice has traced a movement from Convention Refugee to critical citizen, enacting abstraction site-specifically and relationally to create a body of work that challenges the stability of practices of recognition. He began a PhD in Media and Design Innovation at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2022. In 2025, he received a Doctoral Fellowship through SSHRC, Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Prior to his doctoral work, Granados graduated from the Masters of Visual Studies program at the University of Toronto in 2012. In 2010, he received the Governor General's Silver Medal for the highest academic average upon graduating with a bachelor's degree from Emily Carr University.
Key artistic projects include 'confluence' (2021-26), a permanent public artwork in collaboration with architect Kurt Kraler located at the Cumberland St. entrance of Bay Station on the TTC; ‘who claims abstraction?’ (2023-24) a solo exhibition at the Gibson Museum (formerly SFU Galleries) in Vancouver BC; ‘foreward’ (2021-23), a series of site specific installations in dialogue with the permanent collection at The MacLaren Art Centre in Barrie ON; ‘co-respond-dance Version II’ (2020), an artist book published in collaboration with Centre des arts actuels Skol in Montreal QC; and ‘duet’ (2019-20) a traveling two-person exhibition alongside Canadian modernist painter Jack Bush in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Peterborough and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in ON. Other highlights include participation in international group shows on contemporary queer aesthetics at the Hessel Museum (2015) and Ramapo College (2016) in the United States and Malmö Konstmuseum (2022) in Sweden.
He has written essays for art magazines and academic journals since 2009. In 2023, the Gibson Museum at Simon Fraser University published a monograph dedicated to his non-figurative work titled ‘who claims abstraction (with a difference)?’ More recent publications include chapters for books including ‘Diffracting the North: Contemporary Latinx Canadian Experiences and Practices in Film, New Media, and Visual Arts’ (Concordia University Press) and ‘Forced Migration in/to Canada From Colonization to Refugee Resettlement’ (McGill University Press), As an educator, he has taught drawing, site-specific practice, critical theory, writing, and art history to undergraduates at OCAD University, University of Toronto Scarborough, and Toronto Metropolitan University since 2012.