Nuno Cera’s relationship with the modern tradition of photomontage is expressed through the deconstruction of the documentary image to create compositions that suggest new spatial and temporal realities.

Although his work frequently employs unmanipulated photography, the influence of this tradition is evident in the way the artist arranges and layers visual elements to evoke abstract and atmospheric concepts.

Like the pioneers of modern photomontage, Cera uses montage (in both photography and video) to disrupt the continuity of reality, creating what he describes as an “archaeology and memory of the present time”.

In this series, the artist draws on images of suspended objects that appear to float within landscapes, evoking the techniques of collage and montage by articulating the image’s “expanded body” through layered textures, in some cases using images created in the Azores and processed with Artificial Intelligence tools.

His work frequently shifts the traditional typology of portraiture or landscape into a field of “ambiguous references”, bringing photography closer to painting and questioning the conditions of perception—an issue central to the artistic avant-gardes of the twentieth century.

José Maçãs de Carvalho
Visual Arts Curator