Luis González Palma: Early Work

Gitterman Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of early work (1989-1997), from the secondary market, by the Guatemalan artist Luis González Palma (b. 1957).

The exhibition will open on Saturday, November 16, 2024, from 11 a.m. till 6 p.m. and run through Saturday, January 11, 2025. The gallery is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. till 6 p.m. and by appointment. Please check the website for updated hours since the gallery will be closed certain days around the holidays.

During his early career, Luis González Palma made portraits of Guatemalan people of Mayan or mixed Mayan descent to honor their heritage and bring attention to the discrimination and exclusion they faced. In the process, he gained a greater understanding of his own mestizo ancestry. González Palma explains that “…having lived in a country ravaged by more than thirty years of armed conflict…[t]he subject of fear, loneliness, emptiness and absence are deeply embedded in my work.” (see interview with Alasdair Forester)

González Palma uses Christian iconography as well as social and cultural symbolism to create his own lexicon which alludes to universal themes of life and death, fate, spirituality, and mysticism. Through the poignant gaze of his subjects, especially present in these works, González Palma engages the viewer as he honors Mayan identity and acknowledges the complex social history of Guatemala. He also implies that this is one history of many in which humans trespass against their fellow humans.

Though González Palma photographed with black and white film and printed these images as gelatin silver prints, he used various additional processes and techniques including toning, collage, and painting with bitumen and asphaltum. Some are collaged with red ribbons to symbolize a bloodline; others have pages from biblical texts. Some have handling marks, and sometimes scratches, cuts and folds. The collage and handwork emphasize the physical dimension of each piece. They are not pristine photographic prints that suture us into a specific narrative but rather objects with textures from human touch that engage us as poetic evidence.

Luis González Palma’s primary representative in the United States is JDC Fine Art. His work is included in numerous museum collections internationally and he has three monographs to date.