Migration in Dialogue – Francisco Donoso
Portrait of Francisco Donoso. Courtesy of the artist. 2024.
Francisco Donoso’s artistic practice involves mixed-media works that explore the psychic spaces of migration: the psychological, emotional, spiritual, memory, and unseen terrains. It blurs the boundaries between abstraction and recognizable imagery, such as landscape, to excavate the hidden dimensions and textures of migration and transformation.
An NYC-based transnational artist and curator, Donoso is originally from Ecuador but was raised in Miami, FL; he’s been a DACA recipient since 2013. As part of IMPULSE Magazine’s conversation series, Migration in Dialogue, he discusses DACA, his art journey, and how the two intersect.
Andrea Gil: Can you describe your artistic journey and how you developed your style?
Francisco Donoso: I grew up in art schools with access to excellent public education, so my artistic journey began as a young child. I was greatly inspired by Robert Rauschenberg as a teenager and I think his sense of experimentation and exploration has stuck with me as I’ve grown. Nothing is too precious, and everything can be raw material for creation. Even now I feel like my style is still developing—it's such a subjective thing—but I’ve latched onto the chain-link fence motif in my work, and I think it helps define me as an artist and a human.
Francisco Donoso, From My Wrist, 2024. Acrylic, spray paint, and laserprint on mylar with found persona bracelet and red thread mounted on plexiglass.17 x 14 in. Courtesy of the artist.
AG: Where do you call home, and what does home mean to you?
FD: Home is within me. Everywhere else is subject to change, and that's fine—I like change! The journey of reaching my mid-thirties in this time has taught me to release outdated ideas of home and permanence. It’s a privilege to walk the earth as an artist, and part of that gift is to find belonging in my family and friends, but especially, within myself.
AG: I’ve known you for several years and appreciate how vocal you have been about being a DACA recipient. Can you share how your background has influenced your work?
FD: My work is greatly influenced by my experience as someone who is constantly transforming, whether it be with regard to migration, undocumentedness, spirituality, or even my career. I didn’t always need my immigration status as a DACA recipient to be evident in my practice, but I’ve found a lot of pride and purpose in it. I think every person with DACA will tell you something different, but I find that it has helped me to better understand how power operates externally, exerted onto me, and also from within me. I’m not a victim of anything, nor am I special for having DACA—I’m simply living my human story right now under these circumstances and finding a lot of meaning and freedom as an artist. In many ways my astrology reminds me I was destined for it.
AG: Can you share any misconceptions people may have about the DACA immigration policy and process?
FD: Most people don’t actually know anything about DACA, “Dreamers,” or immigration laws and policies within the US. It surprises me when people know about it. A genuine misconception is that it’s a pathway to citizenship, which it’s not! It's a purgatory work permit.
Francisco Donoso, I am the Homeland, 2024. Acrylic, spray paint, and laserjet prints on mylar and red thread mounted on plexiglass.15 x 11 in. Courtesy of the artist.
AG: How does creating abstract art allow you to experiment with different mediums and express your creativity without constraints?
FD: Abstraction is so natural to me. It’s everywhere! I think of abstraction as fluid and in flux, never stagnant or categorized for consumption. The art market turned it into a sellable brand, but abstraction is really another way to talk about the psychic spaces we traverse daily: the areas of our lives that hold meaning but might not materialize, like memory, time, energy, et cetera. I found it hard to reconcile life’s injustices, so I turned to abstraction to offer some wisdom, which holds presence in everything.
Francisco Donoso, All I’ll Ever Be. 2024. Laserjet prints on paper collaged on Ram Board with acrylic and colored pencil. 48 x 26 in. Courtesy of the artist.
AG: What are some of the current themes you are exploring in your art?
FD: I’ve been obsessed with the ocean for maybe my whole life, but recently I'm unfolding what “every wave crashes on my back” means to me. Is it a line of poetry? Prayer? I said it out loud one day in the ocean, and it felt like a massive relief and realization. I’m iterating images of the water across media such as painting, drawing, photography, and printmaking, then layering it primarily with text and scanned immigration documents in order to expand what this moment could mean for me. Grief has entered my practice too: I feel the heaviness of the world around me, and the weight manifests in my work. I’m also processing the end of a life I expected to have but never did—or will—as I prepare to potentially leave the US for good. I’m swimming in a lot of ideas.
Francisco Donoso, Where does all the grief go? 2024. Acrylic and spray paint on mylar with red thread mounted behind printed, drawn and sanded acrylic plexiglass. 23 x 23 in. Courtesy of the artist.
AG: One of your most recent works of art contains a lot of text. How did you come to use text in your work?
FD: Poetry has such a subversive way of reaching the core of the spirit, so I like to hide within it. My recent work, Where Does All The Grief Go?, is an iteration of a poem by the same title that I started working on earlier this year. I’m sourcing lines of poetry and song lyrics across time and language on the topic of grief and combining them into a single collective poem about grief. Each line in the work is a person waiting for something better, and I think it's my duty to join them in solidarity. Witnessing a genocide in Palestine from the safety of my iPhone has changed me forever. What do we do with all this grief?
Francisco Donoso, from Not Valid For Re-Entry To The U.S. 2024. Laserjet prints on mylar painted with acrylic, ink and spray paint. Pamphlet stitch, one of a kind. 8.5 x 7 in. Courtesy of the artist.
AG: What material are you currently excited to explore?
FD: I’m very excited to keep experimenting with printmaking and book-making! I find the intimacy of these formats and also the freedom within them—to be intuitive, to be a storyteller, to be playful—really liberating. I have a handmade and editioned book that I’m working on that will contain the visual memory of my undocumented life. It's a life's work that has to be made. I’m also loving zine-making as a gateway for ideation and iteration—a quick fix!
AG: What do you hope audiences feel when they view your art?
FD: I genuinely hope they feel more connected to themselves and other people. It's very simple.
AG: You are also a curator and have some upcoming exhibitions. What do you aim to explore in your curatorial practice?
FD: I love putting on my curator hat! I’ve just wrapped up Ghosts, a group exhibition at PS122 Gallery in New York City with a roster of 5 artists and also myself. The show emerged from thinking about grief and loss. It was greatly informed by the artists in it and the ways they consider life, death and even resurrection. In general, and as a curator, I like thinking about what lies underneath the surface of a thing, because it’s usually where wisdom lives.
Up next is a show I’m curating at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, Virginia titled That Feel Good! Labor as Pleasure opening December 6th. It's the first in a series of shows I’m planning which explore the idea of labor as pleasurable, specifically in the ways artists obsess over materials, process, ideas, repeated symbols, et cetera. There’s a small thread running through the shows connected to Adrienne Maree Brown’s book, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, that I’m excited to play with. I’m resonating with a lot of textile-based artworks for the shows, so I’m having a blast! The two other iterations of the series are Obsesión! Labor as Pleasure, focused on a Latinx lens, and Why Are You So Obsessed With Me? Labor as Pleasure, focused on a queer lens.
AG: You are also an educator, and I know you often mentor other young artists. Do you have any advice you would like to share?
FD: “Release your inhibitions…Feel the rain on your skin!”
AG: Can you also describe your work with The New York State Youth Leadership Council (NYSYLC)?
FD: I find it really important as an artist making work that is greatly connected to ideas around migration to do life work with communities and organizations that are also engaged in that labor. The NYSYLC has done so much important work in public schools and public colleges, and I support them in as many ways as I can because I was an undocumented student once, too. We’re definitely scheming some things and I’m hoping we team up for some projects this coming year—stay tuned!
Francisco Donoso, Status No. 4. 2024. 6 page spread artist book. Limited quantity of 11 with one AP. Hand-bound pamphlet stitch. Acrylic, spray paint, and colored pencil on mylar with inkjet and laserjet. Custom envelope with signed label. 4 ⅛ x 5 ⅜ in. Courtesy of the artist.
AG: Are there any artworks or artists currently inspiring you?
FD: Always! And so many! But right now, I think about Elsa Muñoz. To summarize, her paintings recover humanity. We’ve been friends for a long time now, and I recently had the honor of co-curating her into the show The Psychic Landscape, which we did in February 2024 at NYC Culture Club with my friend Veronica Petty. Elsa and her paintings help me catch my breath when I’m winded.
AG: Are there any projects that you are excited about and would like others to know about?
FD: I just opened my online shop on my website, where I’m sharing a whole collection of new prints, artists’ books, and more. I’m very excited to re-enter this domain and share my work in this accessible way again.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Francisco Donoso received his BFA from The State University of New York at Purchase and has participated in fellowships and residencies at Wave Hill as a Van Lier Fellow, Stony Brook University, and The Bronx Museum Artist in the Marketplace, among others. He recently completed the 2023–2024 LMCC Workspace Residency. Donoso has participated in solo and group exhibitions throughout the US, notably at El Museo del Barrio, The Bronx Museum of Arts, Children’s Museum of Manhattan, Wave Hill, Kates-Ferri Projects, NADA House, Field Projects, Second Street Gallery, Baik+Khnessyer, and SPRING/BREAK LA. He is a recipient of an Artist Corp Grant from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a Cultural Solidarity Fund Grant.
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