Tony Gonzalez is an artist currently living in New York City. He received his BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art and his MFA from Yale University. In addition to working as a fine art photographer, Gonzalez has taught photography for over 30 years including at The Cooper Union, Pratt Institute and New York University.
Since 2002, Gonzalez has been teaching full-time at Queens College, CUNY and is currently a Tenured Professor and Chair of the Art Department. Gonzalez is a contributing author for The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes, Second Edition and Third Edition by Christopher James, A Step-by-Step Manual Highlighting Artists and Their Creative Practice by Christina Z. Anderson and is featured most recently in the Alternative Process Photography for the Contemporary Photographer: A Beginner's Guide 1st Edition by Morgan Post. In 2016, “NAIADS” was featured in the Arezzo & Fotografia Biennial for photography in Arezzo, Italy.
This photography exhibition, 'Little Red,' features a series of photographs by Tony Gonzalez taken under the theme of the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood." The photography contains mysterious figures resembling those in the fairy tale, playing both figurative and abstract visual roles, within the settings of the city we live in or enchanting nature, which creates familiar yet uncertain symbolic concepts. These images pique viewers' curiosity and draw them into the scenes depicted within the photography, encouraging exploration of the narrative the artist has portrayed.
"I first began to consider the subject of Little Red when I photographed my model wearing a red cloak on an abandoned street in a suburban New Jersey town one Halloween. I became intrigued by the possibility of exploring the storytelling capacity of photography with the idea of a modern-day fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood. However, I was more interested in capturing certain aspects of the story rather than producing literal illustrations of the tale—thereby eliminating certain details of the basket or the wolf.
The red cloak is an arresting visual image and a recognizable symbol that is immediately associated with the fairy tale. Its physical properties and how it changes with light and movement also make it very photogenic. In shooting with the model and the red cloak in public locations, I have observed people's reactions as she passed and realized the potential of the figure not only with its association with Little Red Riding Hood but also as an archetype beyond the fairy tale character. I started by placing Little Red in various natural environments. The Hudson Valley landscape provides a good, if not obvious, backdrop for the photographs.
I am now placing Little Red in “built” environments of unidentifiable place and time with the absence of people. Many of the moments I focus on are the journey of searching for an implied but undisclosed destination. The figure of Little Red is sometimes recognizable with the specificity of an individual, and other times she appears as a floating apparition or a fleeting vision documented and preserved in a photograph. The pictures endeavor to portray Little Red as a metaphorical presence, real or imagined, in the physical world with a connection to the story of her origin."
- Tony Gonzalez, 2024
To learn more about artist Tony Gonzalez, please visit www.tonygonzalezartist.com.