Welcome to Tessa Teixeira’s art practice, her metaphorical garden, where she focuses on play, experimentation, exploring ecologically sustainable materials, climate change challenges and existential philosophical views!

Orchidacea Herbarium – a critically endangered eulogy

According to Professor Alexandre Antonelli, Director of Science at Kew Botanical gardens, and scientists, 45% of flowering plant species are at a risk of extinction.

Orchids, being one of the most sensitive angiosperms, find themselves threatened by climate change and human activities, landing many species in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Portugal is one of the last countries where several types of European orchids can grow in natural conditions. It has become crucial to preserve the few places that haven’t been destroyed by man.

Exhibited at Zaratan Contemporanea in Lisbon, Portugal
26 – 29th Sept 2024

Natures Philharmonic Symphony

We are on the verge of losing our proteas. More than one-third of our protea species are listed in the red data book of plants, which lists species threatened or potentially threatened by mankind.

Amongst our proteas some 35 species are considered to be ‘endangered with extinction’ and a further 46 species are ‘vulnerable to extinction’

Preview exhibited online at Contra.Joburg – 25th May 2024
Featured on @PlayBraam social media.

Step into the Forest Tree Canopy 

Forests are home to 80 percent of earths terrestrial biodiversity. Climate Change is killing trees. From the Amazon to the Arctic, wildfires are getting bigger, hotter and more frequent, as the climate changes. Earth has lost a third of its forests over the past 10 000 years. 

Preview exhibited at Contra.Joburg – 25th May at PlayBraam
5 De Beer street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa. 2024

Cumulonimbus

The most iconic, beloved and most feared clouds on our planet. They can bring life giving rain but also devastating floods. These clouds will dump their contents in around 20 minutes, and can often cause wide-spread damage and flashflooding. Many regions of the earth depend almost totally upon cumulonimbus clouds for rainfall. 

Exhibited Open Air Art Fair – @Victoria_yards
Johannesburg,South Africa 2023

Natures Apothecary

Spekboom – natures carbon sponge! Whether you call it spekboom (aka Portulacaria afra), elephant’s food or pork bush, this incredible plant with its bright green, circular leaves, helps fight air pollution, by improves the quality of the air we breathe and helps fight climate change, by capturing 4 to 10 tons of carbon per hectare. 

Published in Haus-a-rest,  Art zine – Issue 29
Conscious Environment. 2022

Cold Shower & Waterfall

Heraclitus, the ancient Greek Philosopher, wrote a treatis entitled ‘About Nature’, in which appears an aphorism as ‘the whole flows as a river’ or figuratively, as ‘everything flows, nothing stands still’.

I visited Iceland in 2015 and this awe-inspiring experience and the powerful Gulfoss, the two-tiered waterfall on the River Hvita, influenced my ‘Nothing stands still’ portfolio of work.

Exhibited – solo show – Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre
Johannesburg, South Africa 2018.