The Gleaners, (after Millet) Painting

MARTINHO DIAS, (b. 1968) is a Portuguese artist. He have a Master degree in Fine Arts - Painting, by Oporto University. Martinho Dias was illustrator and teacher of Visual Arts until 2009. Since then, he started to dedicate himself full time to artistic activity with works represented in several publications. His work has been distinguished and displayed in many individual and collective exhibitions, both in Portugal and abroad. ______________________ "My work is mostly figurative and my main theme is a social one, playing with society's different powers and privileged social layers, mixed with a generous portion of irony and humour circling many paradoxes". My initial material and subjects are manly from press media, art history and Internet. I am a manipulator and I am also an image/context ‘agitator’, contributing to reality new meanings and narratives. The photographic images are used as "models" to my pictorial compositions. What I do consists of removing several of today’s leading public figures of their comfortable sets offering in return, as often as possible, some degree of discomfort". (Martinho Dias, 2015) The process: "I don't usually make preparatory drawings and sketches on paper; it is more convenient to work with the brain. Besides, at a certain point, computer has become an excellent tool at the initial phase of each new project. This initial moment of the process is crucial for defining the central idea of the painting as well the elements that will give it shape. _______________________