ARTIST STATEMENT



Being born in Ciudad Juarez; a border city in the middle of the desert. Known internationally for two things only, first; being the neighboring town to El Paso, Texas and second; the constant wave of violence towards women and narco wars. A place with extreme social and cultural setbacks in the areas of architecture, art and music. Full of possibilities and nothingness and also full of contradictions and dualities.


Since I can remember I have always been drawn to spaces and situations that are in a constant state of unraveling, in precious objects that fade quickly, and in substances that move through landscapes on the constant verge of extinction and to the traces of existence that are both rare and catastrophically shattered. In this project I will explore the delicacy of existence, consequence and entropy, in a constant move towards increasing complexity and disorder.



My body of work is made from treks into urban environments. Incorporating maps with organic materials, such as rocks, earth and concrete, dealing with the familiar and the unfamiliar creating a conversation between outdoors and indoors, ruminating on time, site, sight, nature and culture. Working with a process that oscillates between digital and analogue techniques from its conceptual development to its built stage, exploring emerging technologies and how they translate into local craft understanding both the potential and the limitations of each type of media (arduino, video and sound installation, architecture, sculpture)


It will trigger uninterrupted dialogues with space and history, and projects the object’s substance into an unknown temporal dimension: what has disappeared, or never existed, lives again in a different time. exhibiting both preservation and obliteration, chaos and fragility, past and future– suggesting both the what-was and what-may-have-been. Possibility and nothingness.


It reintroduces the shapes and the languages of the original architecture, reignites the memory, but at the same time accompanies the visitor in a new emotional and dreamlike experience of the space and contaminates itself with the contemporary landscape and the surrounding context.



HUGO SANTANA



San Antonio based artist, designer, spatial thinker and musician. He is currently pursuing a Master in Fine Arts in Sculpture and New Media from the University of Texas at San Antonio and holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. He is the founder of Chronicles of an Impossible Voyage, a digital experimental audio platform.


​Hugo tactfully explores complex issues related to borders and the expectations of visibility and invisibility of labor, a subject that is both politically and culturally relevant to our time and place in history.



EXHIBITIONS, Talks & Awards



2022

"Tales from the Line" MFA Thesis Solo Exhibition. UTSA Main Art Gallery, San Antonio, TX.


New Media Caucus 2022 Judson-Morrissey Excellence in New Media Award Recipient


“College of Liberal and Fine Arts 38th Annual Juried Student Exhibition” Best of Show Wai Ching Lam Art Prize Juror: Carlos Donjuan, Associate Professor of Art at University of Texas at Arlington. UTSA Main Art Gallery, San Antonio, TX.


2021

“Mykolaiv ART Week: CHANGE” Selected Film. “Tales from the Line”. Mykolaiv, Ukraine.


"Being Human Beings" Group Exhibition Curated by Julie Shipp. Collin College Art Gallery. Plano, TX.


“Architecture of the Elsewhere”Curated by Bianca Abdi-Boragi Selected Film. “Tales from the Line”. New York, NY. galleryperchee.com


“Checkerboard Borders: Experimental Film of the Global South” Curated by Masha Vlasova and Sarah Lasley Selected Film. “Tales from the Line”


“CAM Perennial 2021: Here, the rivers run both ways” Curated by Doreen A. Ríos Selected Videos: “Archive for the Unconceivable”and “Uncertain Site” San Antonio, TX. USA


“College of Liberal and Fine Arts 37th Annual Juried Student Exhibition” Best of Show Wai Ching Lam Art Prize

Juror: H. Jennings Sheffield, Associate Professor of Art at Baylor University. UTSA Main Art Gallery, San Antonio, TX.


Artist Talk during the Festival of the Arts week at Sacramento State University


2020

“College of Liberal and Fine Arts 36th Annual Juried Student Exhibition” Juror: Dennis Sipiorski, Professor of Art, Ceramics, Southeastern Louisiana University. UTSA Main Art Gallery, San Antonio, TX.


“Dimensional” Exhibition Curated by Buster Graybill, Assistant Professor of Sculpture at UTSA. Dock Space, San Antonio, TX.


2019

“Spatial Relationship” Exhibition Curated by Buster Graybill, Assistant Professor of Sculpture at UTSA. Universal City, TX.


“Stationary .mov’t” Exhibition curated by Francisco Alvarado Araujo and Chris Wicker. TCU Fine Arts building. Fort Worth, TX.