city ( series vision of) Painting

1975 Oporto Portugal lives in London I paint because its the only way I can be true to myself. A neo vorticist work Fabricating dreams, redeeming myself with the holy and exorcising ghosts this is how it all started.I love the unbalance, the discontinuity, the rupture, the contrast, the sensorial and also to represent universes and an escape from the centre: giving paintings different and endless perspectives, in other words, I create a number of inside framings that can make the viewer rest his eyes while looking at my work.Almost everything can become an inspiration for me because everything has a secret structure. I just keep falling in love with the foundation lines of the city and of the human body.One of my biggest challenges is trying to make people engage with my work, trying to avoid indifference and therefore create in them some kind of reaction. That is probably why my works seem to escape the symmetry and the expected. The creative process:I take hundreds of photos of everything I grab from the outside world, rummaging through images until I find the right one for a particular work.Besides canvas sometimes my materials are what I can collect, usually whatever has been dumped or disposed, recycling it into art and trying to make the ugly, beautiful. I like big dimensions because my work can be louder, nevertheless I still struggle with the limitative standard measure of works! I often feel that what I paint can very well continue out of these restrictions.I allow the process to be taken in two steps: the gathering of materials through collage and then painting on top of this collage with acrylic. This mixed media has therefore texture, different lays of woods and paper in order to create bi and tri dimensional areas adding to it some dynamism. Paint sometimes lives loosely from the imposed geometry, through rigid strokes I allow it to run, liquid, organic, freerandomly building up a meaning to the final work. My colour range changes, but I tend to use warmer colours that are potentially energy conveyors. I dont really know I many hours I give to each work, everything is a result of a long process, usually painting more than one work at a time, resting it sometimes just for five minutes or even five months.I paint because its the only way I can be true to myself. Almost like a child, shameless, egocentric and regardless of boundaries. I often play around using glue, pieces of wood, paint, a saw, numerous nails, a hammer, an axe...