Mateo Ruiz Gonzalez is an emerging photographer born in 1989 in Bogota, Colombia and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. His work in medium and big format explores unassuming scenes, often using poetic devices to create symbolic images that bring new value to overlooked settings of human mortality and social issues in regions with historical background. His most frequent subject is how mankind and nature interact and coexist, and he explores how time, history and environmental changes alter the relations between the two.
Ruiz Gonzalez latest project Chilluns’ Croon led him to be one of the current finalists of the 2022 Aperture Portfolio Prize, NYFA Fellowship 2022, Photolucida Carte Blanche Award 2022, Film Photo Award - Visionary Project 2022 and Palm Photo Prize 2022. He is one of the winners of the Urbanautica Institute Awards 2021, "Portrait of Humanity 2022" by The BJP, STORIES 2022 International Prize by Photo Collective Australia and one of the winners of the Passepartout Catalog Prize 2022.
In 2021, Ruiz Gonzalez’s work led him to be selected as one of 40 winning single images for The British Journal of Photography award Decade of Change. He was awarded by Eyes on Main Street as one of the resident photographers in 2021, where he started working on his latest project titled Chilluns’ Croon. Ruiz Gonzalez is also a City Art Corps Grantee for the NYFA.
In 2020 he was a grantee for the Pulitzer Center and NatGeo during the COVID-19 global pandemic.
