THE BUTTONED DROP Painting

João Figueiredo Biography João Figueiredo was born in Lisbon in 1970. In his academic life there are several years studying History of Art and a animation cinema course at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. He graduated in Design in 1993 at IADE and later frequented the design and arts at . He worked for several years on publicity and design. Several very successful publicity campaigns had his touch on them and he was responsible for the arts direction of several publications and was the author of several Book covers for several famous authors such as Vasco Graça Moura, Leonor Xavier and Margarida Rebelo Pinto. He received praise for his proposal for a logo for Expo98 and the 1st prize in direct marketing, for Martini. He founded two design companies, AB21 and Design Partners. In 2000 his first paintings came to light in the exhibit “Mortas por Natureza” (“Dead by Nature”) which was followed within a year by the exhibition “Frutos Proibidos” (“Forbidden Fruits”) in partnership with Jacinto Luis. In 2004 he received the “Prize Nadir Afonso” at the Estoril Contemporary Art Fair, his work having been chosen by Architect Nadir Afonso himself. In that same year he finished the phase of still lives with “Liliput Chamber”. In 2005, with the exclusive and groundbreaking support of Swarovski, João Figueiredo began a new phase with projects of reinterpretation of classical works of art. He presented “Retratos da memória” (“Portraits of memory”) and the Grémio Literário in Lisbon and “Rinascimento dil Rittrato” (“Rebirth of portrait”) and the International Florence Bienalle of Contemporary Art, for which he got a highlight critic at the “New York Arts Magazine”. In 2006 he presented “Again for the first time” at the Ministry of Finance in Lisbon. Throughout his career it is also possible to highlight the nominations for the “Vespeira Prize”, “Artur Bual Prize” and “Cerveira Bienalle”, and the receipt in 2005 of the honorary mention of the “D. Fernando II Prize” by the Sintra Municipality. During the celebrations of the “New Seven Wonders of the World”, which took part in Lisbon, he was invited to present the project “SEVEN – From Past to Pop” at the Museum of the City of Lisbon, one of the works presented having been given an honorary mention at the “3rd Erotic Art Prize”. By the end of 2007 he presented his first work on photography “D-TALES – Digital Tales”, a photographic reinterpretation of his art works.