Xan Padron

Galician photographer Xan Padrón (Ourense 1969) received his first camera from photojournalist Enrique Reza. The latter awakened in him a passion for everyday photography, who, just like his father, the journalist Luís Padrón, had inspired in him the patience to listen and watch stories.

After several street photography projects in New York City in 2011, he began his acclaimed project, Time-Lapse: a collection of portraits of various cities through the people who inhabit them. His series Time-Lapse has been exhibited, among other places, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, The Pfizer Building in New York, and the art fairs Photo L.A., Art on Paper NYC, and The Other Art Fair, presented by Saatchi Art in London, New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Chicago. His work has been published on the cover of the eleventh edition of the anthology Race, Class and Gender in the United States (MacMillan, 2020), in the sociology volume Personal Networks (Cambridge University Press, 2021), and international publications such as the New England Review (NER), Die Zeit Magazine (Germany), PRISM International (Canada), and Photo World Magazine (China). His Time-Lapses pictures were even on the cover of the autumn catalog of Saatchi Art (2019). They were selected for New York City’s program Art on Link (#ArtOnLink) (LinkNYC, CityBridge 2020), where Xan Padrón’s sociological portraits were shared on more than 1,700 digital kiosks citywide.

Xan Padrón’s career as a photographer is also linked to his previous occupation as a professional musician. For more than a decade, he toured with his bass and his camera documenting life around musicians with whom he worked. As a photographer of artists and concerts, he has worked in an official capacity for APAP (Association of Performing Arts Professionals, United States) and for the publications Inside Arts and The Writer Magazine (United States).

Xan Padrón shares his life with the musician, educator, and writer Cristina Pato. Since 2005, he has spent his time between Galicia and New York City and has his studio at Mana Contemporary (NJ).