Todd Hido

The presence of absence, isolation, anonymity, darkness, loneliness, loss, malincholy. This is what I felt looking at Todd Hido’s large, detailed and luminous photographs. The american contemporary artist and photographer focuses his work on urban and suburban housing and landscapes across the United States. His landscapes are viewed mostly through the blurry haze of a car when the rain falls on the window. Riding through southern and western parts of U.S the artist shoots random photographs of snowy roads, bleak fields, bare trees, bridges understructures,with a soft light that gives the feeling that something is going to happen. His urban and suburban housing series convey the feeling of a ghostly presence fused with the sense of fragility of the physical and idiological structures where we shelter ourselves. The weather and the atmosphere play a central role such as the passing dark clouds that give a feeling of time passing. Not only enjoyng the beautiful view as a classic conception he examines and picks instants of sublimity in the contemplation of nature. The viewer is encouraged to place himself in the photographer’s position while he offers the experience of sublime nature. Hido as the impressionists and J.M.W Turner concentrates on light and the ephemeral atmospheric effects emphasised by long exposures. His portraits are always shoot in a room, an enclosed space. They suggest a psychological, emotional and sexual interiority, the vulnerability of the personal and the interior spaces. References to our unsafe and unstable society are clear.

Discovering recently Hido’s work I found a part of myself in his pictures and from now on he will be an important reference.

Reference:

·en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Hido

·query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01EEDB153BF93BA35753C1A9629C8B6

·kemperart.org/exhibits/CatalogEssays/hidotodd.asp