Hector R. Membreno-Canales was born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras (1988) and grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He served more than a decade as a US Army Photographer working in Iraq, El Salvador, Poland and more. Hector used the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill to study Photography at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) and earned his MFA from the Dept. of Art & Art History at Hunter College, The City University of New York.
Hector’s work explores official histories, American patriotism, and the Military-Industrial Complex. His photographs have been exhibited at Triennale der Photographie Hamburg, Osnova Gallery Moscow (2016), Aperture Foundation (2017), The Delaware Contemporary Museum of Art (2017), and ATHICA Athens Institute of Contemporary Art (2019). His work has been featured in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Columbia Journalism Review, NPR, CNN, and L’Oeil de la Photographie.
Membreno-Canales, Hector and Hughes, Aaron. On Patriotic Consumption, An Index of Patriotic Consumption. Veteran Art Movement, 4 July 2020 https://www.veteran-art-movement.net/evam-blog/2020/7/4/on-patriotic-consumption Accessed 20 July 2022.
Membreno-Canales, H. R. ““After-Ozymandias”: The Colonization of Symbols and the American Monument” (2018). CUNY Academic Works. https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/343
Basu, Shumita, et al. WNYC News: The People Serving Our Country While Living at Home.” WNYC News, National Public Radio, 28 May 2018,
Membreno-Canales Hector R. and Dugan, Jess T,. “War Gaming.” Strange Fire Collective Journal, 3 Aug. 2017, https://www.strangefirecollective.com/qa-hector-rene/.
Membreno-Canales, Hector and Cohen, Steven. “The War Game That Came in From the Cold The New Republic, 17 June 2017, https://newrepublic.com/article/134177/war-game-came-cold.
Gonzalez, David. “Still Life with Soldier and Bullets.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Aug. 2014, https://archive.nytimes.com/lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/still-life-with-soldier-and-bullets/.
A.M.O.T., Smithsonian Institute
William R. Kenan Jr. Grant, Phillips Academy, Andover
Kossak Painting Research & Travel Grant, Hunter College CUNY
Eddie Adams Workshop XXXIII
The New York Times Portfolio Review
Magnum Foundation Project Development Grant
Red Bull Arts Grant
The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, National Juror
School of Visual Arts Alumni Scholarship Award
