Involuntary Landscapes interprets artist Hugo Teixeira’s attempts to piece together a historical and cultural consciousness lost when his family emigrated from Portugal and settled in California in the 1970’s.
The found photos of an anonymous family in pre-revolutionary Portugal recall the characters and settings of his own family’s stories and evoke recollections of the past. He juxtaposes these with deliberately crafted landscape photos from his travels in the California chaparral and the Portuguese montado.
Together, these images form unique artworks which interpret the past through the lens of the present to close the distance between the artist and the distant stories of his family.
About the artist
Hugo Teixeira grew up in the Luso-American community in San Jose, California. A linguist by training, he studied photography at San Jose State University and Lisbon’s Escola Técnica de Imagem e Comunicação, and graduated from the MFA in the Photography and Related Media program at the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2020.
His artwork relies on photography, common materials, advanced technical skillsets and memory to create contemporary conceptual images and sculptures. Hugo’s work has been recognized and awarded by the OFF Bratislava festival (2022 Lee Award), the Silver Eye Center for Photography (2020 Silver List), Photolucida (2020 Critical Mass finalist), Soho Photo Gallery (2020 National Competition), FotoFika (2020 All Stars Project), among others.
As an artist and teacher, Teixeira has exhibited work in the United States, Europe, and the Macau Special Administrative Region of China.
His artwork relies on photography, common materials, advanced technical skillsets and memory to create contemporary conceptual images and sculptures. Hugo’s work has been recognized and awarded by the OFF Bratislava festival (2022 Lee Award), the Silver Eye Center for Photography (2020 Silver List), Photolucida (2020 Critical Mass finalist), Soho Photo Gallery (2020 National Competition), FotoFika (2020 All Stars Project), among others.
As an artist and teacher, Teixeira has exhibited work in the United States, Europe, and the Macau Special Administrative Region of China.
