Gabriel García Román

Gabriel García Román (born 1973) is a Mexican-American photographer and visual artist based in New York City. He is best known for his Queer Icons, QTPoC (Queer Trans People of Color) photography series.

Biography Born in Zacatecas, Mexico, in 1973, García Román and his family immigrated to the United States when he was two years old. He lived with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area for three years. At the age of five they moved to North Side of Chicago where he spent his formative years. Growing up in a Mexican working-class household he was always afraid of coming out to his family and hid his sexuality. This gave him a chance to blend into the background and observe life's smaller details. At the age of twenty-six he moved to New York to reinvent himself and live life.

Education García Román attended City College of New York where he received a Bachelors of Arts in studio art in 2012.

Art works García Román weaves and integrates many styles from religious imagery to popular culture into his work to combat bias and push photography. He grew up Catholic and was influenced by the painting and murals of the saints depicted in the cathedrals. These pieces had a strong connection with García Román and saw inspiration with them. He then combined this with his beliefs in the LGBTQ community in which he states they are the modern-day saints. His inspiration and the subjects he is drawn to speak highly of the diversity he brings to this series. The Queer Icon series caught many eyes and was highlighted in many news outlets like the National Public Radio (NPR) and the Huffington Post which sent a new wave of newfound diversity in these saint-like portraits.

Queer Icons (QTPoC)

Inspiration In this series you can see the inspiration from the works itself as one of the most notable aspects are the halo-like accents in most of the portraits. The form in which each person takes in looking outward in various positions, colors, and depth in which these people are portrayed further exemplifies not only the saints but the portrait styles. García Román was inspired by the portrait styles from Renaissance and Christian Orthodox painting. Some notable inspirations for Roman are Renaissance artist like Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Albrecht Dürer.

Subjects García Román started to use friends and close acquaintances as the main focus in his art. As he entered this field, more subjects came to light through the means of social media like Tumblr and Instagram. Queer Icons Workshop LaGuardia Community College 31-10 Thomson Avenue Long Island City, Queens May 7, 2019 Queer icons Hudson Valley LGBTQ+ Community Center 300 Wall Street Kingston, New York 12401 February 2020 Queer Icons: A conversation with Gabriel Garcia Roman LGBTQ Center, Academic Centers / Institutes, Office of Civic & Community Engagement 1834 Wake Forest Road Winston-Salem, NC 27106 February 28, 2017 Queer Icons procession Leslie-Lohman Museum New York, NY 2019 Divinity: Queer Icons Middle Collegiate Church New York, NY 2018 Queer Icons digital mural Galeria de la Raza San Francisco, CA 2016

845-6799957February 11- March 2017 Parallax: Revisioning Queer and Gender and the Criminalization of QueernessAmos Eno GalleryBrooklyn, NY2019The Portrait is PoliticalGallery at BRIC HouseBrooklyn, NY2019

Award, grants and residencies LMCC Workspace Residency – Lower Manhattan Cultural Counsel, 2019. NFA Artist Grant – National Association of Latino Arts & Culture, 2018 Professional Printmaking Program, Self-Help Graphics Los Angeles CA, 2017 Therese McCabe Ralston Connor Awards, 2008, 2009, 2010