Self-taught photographer, lives and works in Guatemala City.

After working in New York as a fashion photographer for over a decade, Brenner returned to his native Guatemala where he began making work about the people and complex territory in the country’s Western Highlands.

Juan uses photography to reflect on the fluidity and abstract nature of identity and territory, his images capture the complexities of cultural hybridization and, more poignantly, the way power, hierarchical structures and inequality are instrumentally continued through time. 

Brenner’s first monograph, Tonatiuh, was shortlisted for the 2019 Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation First PhotoBook Award. For the same project, he was a winner of LensCulture’s 2019 Emerging Talent Award

His works have been featured in publications including Aperture, British Journal of Photography, Le Monde, VICE, C-41, Aint Bad, Fisheye, Booooooom, California Sunday Magazine, Paper Journal, Collector Daily, I-D Magazine, Dazed and Confused, Pardo, Loupe, Palm Studios, Metal Magazine, Musee, JOIA and Balam Magazine.

He is a founding member of Proyectos Ultravioleta in Guatemala City.