In Seven Days by Chuck Ramirez, Foodscapes Become Community Portraits

A series of still life photographs by late San Antonio artist Chuck Ramirez capture the essence of a Texas community and subculture.

His iconic style of photographing isolated objects on a white background might sound cold and impersonal upon first description, however they are anything but. Ramirez approached each object with empathy and tenderness, as if encapsulating its history, essence, and the essence of those that interacted with it. Having been raised in San Antonio by a Mexican American father and a white American mother, Ramirez’s work often explored and celebrated his culturally specific identity through the recontextualizing lenses of minimalism and conceptualism.