Francis Estrada was born in the Philippines in 1975 and moved to the United States in 1988. He lived in various cities in the US and eventually moved to the Bay Area in California to study art. He received his BFA in painting and drawing at San Jose State University in 1999.

During his course of study at San Jose State he began working with the subject of identity, as a Filipino living in America. He began researching Filipino history to better understand himself and his culture and found that there was a lack of information on Philippine history before the Spanish occupation. At this point, he was introduced to the work of the “postcolonial” artists Manuel Ocampo, Gaston Damag, and Lordy Rodriguez, who sought to reframe and recontextualize colonial history. It has been noted by historians:

(…)colonial history is inextricable from the artists’ own and their art reflects the admixture of confrontation, denial, and codification that results from this realization.

He is currently investigating the influence of Catholicism as brought by the Spanish colonization and he explores the influence that religion has had on him and on his culture; that the fear of a wrathful God as well as fear of retribution still affects the way of life.

Estrada is now living in New York City and continues to explore themes of piety, sin, temptation, and confusion of history illustrated through the influential style of Spanish/Colonial Baroque.