Luis González Palma’s multifaceted body of work uses photography to create portraits, tableaux, abstract compositions, installations and objects. In rich sepia tones, his early portraits explored the identities of indigenous Mayans and the mestizo people of Guatemala. He is interested in the mechanism, culture and responsibility of perception. For him, the work of art is an opportunity to question the way we look at things and to understand how history and society train us to react to what we see in the world.
As the artist explained: “I have conceived these projects, the most recent ones, with the desire that the image could contain, and somehow highlight and express, the invisible. Word and fundamental experience sustain this whole visual adventure. Like that which is unseen when seen; unspoken when spoken, like all those silences that a symphony contains; this work is an intimate and very personal attempt at shaping the ghosts that rule personal relationships, religious hierarchies...”
González Palma was born in Guatemala and lives in Cordoba, Argentina. He studied architecture and cinematography at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala but chose to focus on photography. Since 1989, his work has been collected internationally and shown in more than 58 expositions throughout the Americas and Europe, including at Les Rencontres de Arles (France), the 49th and 51st Venice Biennials (Italy), Fotobeinal de Vigo (Spain), XXII Biennial in Sao Paulo (Brazil) and the V Biennial in Havana (Cuba).