JÚLIO DE MATOS's BIO
March 2010
BACKGROUND...
Júlio de Matos was born in Braga, Portugal. He became interested in
photography at an early age, and in black and white darkroom work. He also had commissions for portrait work.
In 1974, he trained in Industrial Design with Gerald Gulotta of the Pratt
Institute in Brooklyn, NY, USA, attending the Industrial Design Workshop
74 organised by the Fundo de Fomento de Exportação.
In 1976, he completed the Higher Education Architecture Course at ESBAP
– Porto School of Fine Arts.
He improved his knowledge of photography thanks to the ITT - International
Fellowship granted to him through the Fullbright-Hays Scholarship Program
to study for a post-graduate MFA in Photography as a Fine Art at the Rochester
Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA, from 1979 to 1981. There,
he studied with Charles A. Arnold Jr., Owen Butler, Bea Nettles, John
Pfahl, Elliott Rubeinstein, Richard D. Zakia, amongst others.
Part of his initial work deals with and explores interconnections, between
manuality, photographic techniques, and the alternative photographic processes,
with vision, content and meaning.
Recently he carried out photographic projects, that resulted from his
multiple trips to Asia, that show his concern with the survival and extinction
of ancestral cultures: “Ta Prahom – The Memory
of the World” (Cambodia, 2001), “Heaven’s Door – Manikarnika Ghat” (India, 2003), “Fading Hutongs” (China, 2005-2008).
“Casas de Brasileiro”, (Portugal, 2008, Exhibition and Photographic Album), follows this state of mind.
His latest photographic series “Flat Water”, carried out in the North
of Portugal, deals with digital interventions as a way to question the
apparent three-dimensionality of a landscape on a photographic print.
EPSON support since 2003
Digigraph Artist since December 2007
Represented by Galeria Serpente in Porto, Portugal.
© 2009-2011 All Photographs and texts by Júlio de Matos | All rights reserved | © Júlio de Matos, 2009-2011