With dusted fingerprints and rapid strokes, Hojnacki’s photographic paintings evoke the thread of communication we each possess with our own subconscious, speaking with the intangible parts of ourselves that attempt to contact us from their own dimensions. Breaking the boundaries of both photographers and painters that have come before, this Albuquerque-based artist and educator is reviving the 19th-century cliché verre photography process to fit within the contemporary world of art.

Daniel Hojnacki recently received his M.F.A from the University of New Mexico. The artist’s practice uses experimental techniques in photography as a way to be a mindful observer within the world. His work explores material that pushes against traditional approaches to the photographic printmaking process, often blurring the lines between painting and photography.

Hojnacki is a recent recipient of the Patrick Nagatani Photography Scholarship, Phyllis Muth Arts Award, and was selected to be an Artist in Residence with the Penumbra Foundation in New York City, New York. (August 2022). He has exhibited work at the Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Chicago Cultural Center. Hojnacki has hosted public workshops and lectures with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Smart Museum of Art. His work has been featured in Lenscratch, Phases Magazine, Aint-Bad Magazine, and Southwest Contemporary.

As an educator of art, who has been working with youth since he began his career in Chicago and will commence his position as Adjunct Professor at UNM in September 2022, Hojnacki incorporates an intimate learning process within his art that is directed at knowing the self better. By conversing with the self, he is simultaneously conversing with us all— representing how we are all made of that same dust from the stars and the bones of those that came before.