PEDRO VAZ
Maputo, Mozambique, 1977
Pedro Vaz’s artistic practice, mostly resulting in painting and video-installations, is based on a research about landscape. It is conducted through journeys and solitary expeditions, in an approach he defines as lived landscape. The artist develops projects in which he tries to keep the awareness that landscape, as represented in art, is but a construction dependent on humankind’s perception of itself as separated from nature.
The growing distance between humankind and nature, as reflected in human consciousness, stems from the notions that ‘construct’ the Landscape: self / nature; real landscape / artist’s body; perceptual field / creation. These are present across the journeys he undertakes and, for this reason, wild and empty landscapes are the most adequate sites for his inquiry. Some of the most recent include Amazonas, Brazil, or Superstition Mountains, USA.