Critical Distance DIRECTORY Ernesto Cabral de Luna

Ernesto Cabral de Luna is a Mexican lens-based artist working in Toronto. Working through analog and digital processes, he utilizes his own photographs, archived imagery and documents to create still images and short animations emphasizing the multi-dimensionality and materiality of the image. His work centers around altering perception through image manipulation – providing new ways to experience recognizable imagery in unconventional manners and outside of their intended purpose. Drawing from his immigrant experience, Ernesto explores themes of identity and representation, creating artwork that is relatable to people who feel like they are from two worlds in one sense, and from neither in another. Pushing the boundaries of contemporary photography, he merges experimental techniques with sculpture and installation methods of presentation by way of printing onto unconventional and often manipulated surfaces.

Ernesto received his BFA in photography from OCAD University in 2024, where he received the 2024 Barbara Astman Photography Award and the 2021 Wendy Coburn Art and Social Change Scholarship. The recipient of the 2024 Gallery44 Residency Award, and the 2024 Partners in Art’s Artist-Direct Grant, he has exhibited at various galleries in Toronto including Ada Slaight, Xpace Cultural Center, Abbozzo Gallery and will be exhibiting at Patel Brown, and Ignite Gallery.  Ernesto was commissioned to create a mural at the Finch TTC station as a part of the 2024 Luminato Festival and his work is a part of Casey House Foundation’s 2024 Art with Heart auction.  Ernesto was selected for the Toronto Raptors’ 2022 Welcome Toronto Creators Program where he worked closely with notable companies such as The Toronto Raptors, Coors Light and Walmart Canada.