Johnny Pérez is driven by a desire to create connections. As a high school dropout and incarcerated teen, he knows all too well what it is to not matter and lack the confidence to question it.
His practice operates in a liminal territory between social practice, education, and policy. It’s an art practice of healing through affirming his own existence by validating the lives of those who go unseen through interactions and building community.
His photography celebrates the capacity of humans to open themselves up to one another. Whether in the sly smile of a stranger on the streets of New York, or the quiet pride in the eyes of a mother in Guatemala, the images act as conduits of emotion, vulnerability, and compassion between artist, subject, and viewer.