Atlanta, Georgia | Mentor: Dannielle Bowman
Brayan Enriquez (b. 2000) is a first-generation Mexican American artist based in Atlanta, GA. He holds a BFA in Photography from the Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design at Georgia State University. Enriquez is a recipient of Aperture and Google’s 2024 Creator Labs Photo Fund, Atlanta Center for Photography’s 2025 Emerging Artist Fellowship, the 2025 Atlanta Artadia Award, and Atlanta Contemporary’s 2026 Nexus Fund, which is administered through the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Regional Regranting Program. His work has been featured in Burnaway, Number:Inc, Observer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The New York Times.
“To feel supported by a mentor who I felt only wanted the best for me was truly special. Their encouragement inspired me to reach for new heights in my career, and for that I will be forever grateful.”
-Brayan Enriquez | 2026 Junior Fellow
Project Statement
As immigrants across the U.S. are increasingly surveilled, detained, and deported, I’m left asking what it means to return “home” when that home has been altered or erased altogether. Challenging the myth of a simple, transactional process of “sending folks back home,” I traveled to my father’s hometown of Tampico, Tamaulipas, a place he’s been unable to return to for three decades due to stringent travel restrictions imposed on him as an immigrant. Using a camera, I witnessed on my father’s behalf how much his home has changed into a place altogether unrecognizable. Much of what he knew thirty years ago no longer exists: his parents and dear friends have passed away, and the ranch on which he was raised has since been sold. With so much lost, I started asking my father to make drawings of what he could remember, if anything. What began as a simple gesture soon became a daily ritual, as the act of drawing itself seemed to unlock his memories. From the drawings my father makes, I then trace them in charcoal onto the printed photographs in order to juxtapose what’s remembered and what’s been lost in real time.
2026 Junior Fellows: Yuhan Cheng | Brayan Enriquez | Claire Kosky | Jacobb Nichol | Avery Norman | Dahveed Wilkins