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Work

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ABOUT

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On view:


Espelho Meu

(solo show)


Sep 12 - Oct 12 2024

Maus Hábitos


Porto, Portugal

Simão Martinez (Lisbon, 1993) is an artist based in Lisbon, Portugal. Since 2017, he has exhibited regularly across Europe, and his work is held in various private and institutional collections, including museums and academic faculties. His work has also been featured in over a dozen catalogs.


Simão’s practice spans printmaking (stone lithography and chalcography), painting, drawing, ceramics, and mixed media. His drawing and printmaking explore fleeting personal moments—memories of love, trauma, and altered mental states such as dissociation—juxtaposed with broader historical continuity. In this work, Simão reflects on the collision between our contemporary, personal experiences and the unfathomable scale of human history. 


His practice acknowledges the universality of the human condition: we are both individuals grappling with personal trauma and living metonymies of humanity, connected to the collective struggles of others. Amid increasing alienation fueled by abstract, technological existence, his work seeks specificity in human experience, exploring how personal narratives resonate on a universal level. By striving for atemporality, Simão aims to create art that speaks across time, hoping it will retain an essence of humanity far into the future, much like the works of artists throughout history. His practice is marked by a critical stance towards contemporary culture, coupled with a transgressive, DIY ethos—an attitude reminiscent of punk, even if calling it so is an irony in itself.


In his more recent works, Simão employs materials like clay, gesso, encaustic, and oil paint, engaging with forms rooted in the earliest art-making traditions—from household items to decorative objects and funerary art. These materials carry with them a sense of abundance, humbleness, and historical weight, sharply contrasting with the modern imagery he produces. Through processes that involve warping, shaping, and often violent gestures inflicted upon the materials, he creates non-neutral surfaces that resemble fragments or remnants. This approach foregrounds the fragility and impermanence of the materials, mirroring his own reflections on human vulnerability and his experiences with mental illness. His work evokes a tension between the material’s inherent fragility and the persistent human drive to create meaning.


Simão’s practice draws on a wide range of influences, including thinkers such as Hal Foster and Chogyam Trungpa. In particular, Trungpa’s concept of Dharma Art, which stresses the non-duality between life and art, deeply informs his work. For Simão, being an artist and being human are not separate acts—both require a shared vulnerability. His work seeks to expose the "real" in art, where there is no separation between experience and expression, between the person and the artist. Balancing a critique of traditional representation with an intense focus on material presence, Simão’s work navigates the tension between the immediacy of the present and the long arc of art history. It questions enduring narratives while embracing the fragility that is central to both art and life, offering a meditation on the fractured, often unstable nature of being human.

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Between Pasts

About this series

Fugue

About this series

Fieldwork

About this series

Procession

About this series

Self-Misportraits

About this series

Tower

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Glass House

About this series

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Simão Martinez (Lisbon, 1993) is an artist based in Lisbon, Portugal. He has been exhibiting regularly since 2017, both in Portugal and abroad (France, Spain, Poland and the UK), and his work can be found in both private and institutional collections in Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. His works have also been published in over a dozen catalogs (see "Publications").His choice of media encompasses printmaking (stone lithography & chalchography), painting and drawing, and he works towards harmonizing the profound material mastery that their traditions have honed throughout history, both in Western and Eastern approaches, with the conceptual freedom of contemporary times.Although his work avoids values such as urgency and disruptiveness, it is nonetheless the product of exposure to contemporary culture. In between his broad, often dissociative scope of subject matter and formal qualities, lies a central focus on creating objects that evade "contemporaryness", in a dialogue that does not privilege their own temporal context, but rather their inherent phenomenological and material character, and the somewhat atemporal state art can exist in.

Simão Martinez (Lisbon, 1993) is an artist based in Lisbon, Portugal. He has been exhibiting regularly since 2017, both in Portugal and abroad (France, Spain, Poland and the UK), and his work can be found in both private and institutional collections in Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. His works have also been published in over a dozen catalogs (see "Publications").His choice of media encompasses printmaking (stone lithography & chalchography), painting and drawing, and he works towards harmonizing the profound material mastery that their traditions have honed throughout history, both in Western and Eastern approaches, with the conceptual freedom of contemporary times.Although his work avoids values such as urgency and disruptiveness, it is nonetheless the product of exposure to contemporary culture. In between his broad, often dissociative scope of subject matter and formal qualities, lies a central focus on creating objects that evade "contemporaryness", in a dialogue that does not privilege their own temporal context, but rather their inherent phenomenological and material character, and the somewhat atemporal state art can exist in.

Simão Martinez (Lisbon, 1993) is an artist based in Lisbon, Portugal. He has been exhibiting regularly since 2017, both in Portugal and abroad (France, Spain, Poland and the UK), and his work can be found in both private and institutional collections in Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. His works have also been published in over a dozen catalogs (see "Publications").His choice of media encompasses printmaking (stone lithography & chalchography), painting and drawing, and he works towards harmonizing the profound material mastery that their traditions have honed throughout history, both in Western and Eastern approaches, with the conceptual freedom of contemporary times.Although his work avoids values such as urgency and disruptiveness, it is nonetheless the product of exposure to contemporary culture. In between his broad, often dissociative scope of subject matter and formal qualities, lies a central focus on creating objects that evade "contemporaryness", in a dialogue that does not privilege their own temporal context, but rather their inherent phenomenological and material character, and the somewhat atemporal state art can exist in.

Simão Martinez (Lisbon, 1993) is an artist based in Lisbon, Portugal. He has been exhibiting regularly since 2017, both in Portugal and abroad (France, Spain, Poland and the UK), and his work can be found in both private and institutional collections in Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. His works have also been published in over a dozen catalogs (see "Publications").His choice of media encompasses printmaking (stone lithography & chalchography), painting and drawing, and he works towards harmonizing the profound material mastery that their traditions have honed throughout history, both in Western and Eastern approaches, with the conceptual freedom of contemporary times.Although his work avoids values such as urgency and disruptiveness, it is nonetheless the product of exposure to contemporary culture. In between his broad, often dissociative scope of subject matter and formal qualities, lies a central focus on creating objects that evade "contemporaryness", in a dialogue that does not privilege their own temporal context, but rather their inherent phenomenological and material character, and the somewhat atemporal state art can exist in.

Simão Martinez (Lisbon, 1993) is an artist based in Lisbon, Portugal. He has been exhibiting regularly since 2017, both in Portugal and abroad (France, Spain, Poland and the UK), and his work can be found in both private and institutional collections in Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. His works have also been published in over a dozen catalogs (see "Publications").His choice of media encompasses printmaking (stone lithography & chalchography), painting and drawing, and he works towards harmonizing the profound material mastery that their traditions have honed throughout history, both in Western and Eastern approaches, with the conceptual freedom of contemporary times.Although his work avoids values such as urgency and disruptiveness, it is nonetheless the product of exposure to contemporary culture. In between his broad, often dissociative scope of subject matter and formal qualities, lies a central focus on creating objects that evade "contemporaryness", in a dialogue that does not privilege their own temporal context, but rather their inherent phenomenological and material character, and the somewhat atemporal state art can exist in.

Simão Martinez (Lisbon, 1993) is an artist based in Lisbon, Portugal. He has been exhibiting regularly since 2017, both in Portugal and abroad (France, Spain, Poland and the UK), and his work can be found in both private and institutional collections in Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. His works have also been published in over a dozen catalogs (see "Publications").His choice of media encompasses printmaking (stone lithography & chalchography), painting and drawing, and he works towards harmonizing the profound material mastery that their traditions have honed throughout history, both in Western and Eastern approaches, with the conceptual freedom of contemporary times.Although his work avoids values such as urgency and disruptiveness, it is nonetheless the product of exposure to contemporary culture. In between his broad, often dissociative scope of subject matter and formal qualities, lies a central focus on creating objects that evade "contemporaryness", in a dialogue that does not privilege their own temporal context, but rather their inherent phenomenological and material character, and the somewhat atemporal state art can exist in.

In contrast to my focus on a single elemental structure, the line on series like "Procession", in the "Glass House" series, comprised mostly of paintings on paper and wood, I explore the addition and subtraction of matter as a compositional element. I use pure single-pigment paints, layered with progressive opacity, and shape the images by removing layers with various tools. The process involves the accumulation of time, layers, and the removal of matter in its application.


Painted largely from memory, over successive memories of the same space, I'm drawn to places that I inhabit for an extended period of time, witnessing their transformation and reorganization. I seek to understand what lies within and beyond things, underneath and above, and all the things that I know are there due to my multisensory and historical experience of a place, which flows into the gestures I develop.


During the lockdowns of 2020-21, I spent time drawing my home as if it were a landscape, fragile and transparent, mirroring the fragility of life itself. Here, the boundaries between drawing and painting dissolve even further, to the point where I sometimes don't know where to place them.

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Night of Saints

, 

2018

Oil on canvas

150 x 100 cm

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Incandescence (after Delacroix)

, 

2019

Stone Lithography on paper

50 x 70 cm

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Something's Off!

, 

2018

Oil on primed paper

70 x 50 cm

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Ameixoeira I

, 

2018

Oil on canvas

120 x 120 cm

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Minus Three

, 

2019

Aquatint etching on paper

"

Fugue

"

series

70 x 50 cm (sheet size)

FILTERS

2019

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2018

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2017

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2023

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2022

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2021

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2020

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2023

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Between Pasts

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Fugue

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Fieldwork

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Procession

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Self-Misportraits

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Tower

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Glass House

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Painting

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Printmaking

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Sculpture

☓

Installation

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Ceramics

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Drawing

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CV - Exhibitions

[object Object]

We Have Time for That

Galeria Arte Graça

Lisbon, Portugal

Somnium et Mirabilia

MAC - Carmo Archaeological Museum

Lisbon, Portugal

SGPCM - FBAUL Prize

SGPCM - Secretariat-General for the Presidency of the Ministers' Council

Lisbon, Portugal

Ridges and Waterlines in the Côa Valley: A Contemporary Printmaking Exhibition

MAC - Carmo Archaeological Museum

Lisbon, Portugal

Printmaking and Transgression

MAC - Carmo Archaeological Museum

Lisbon, Portugal

Paula Rego Prize: 3rd Edition

Paula Rego House of Stories

Cascais, Portugal

Paula Rego Prize: 2nd Edition

Paula Rego House of Stories

Cascais, Portugal

New Regards on the Côa Valley: A Contemporary Printmaking Exhibition

MAC - Carmo Archaeological Museum

Lisbon, Portugal

New Regards on the Côa Valley: A Contemporary Printmaking Exhibition

Côa Museum

Vila Nova de Foz Côa, Portugal

JustLX - Contemporary Art Fair

CCL - Lisbon Congress Centre

Lisbon, Portugal

From Matter to Line

Galeria Arte Graça

Lisbon, Portugal

Flâneurs and Dandies Suspended in a Smartphone

MAC - Carmo Archaeological Museum

Lisbon, Portugal

Flâneurs and Dandies Suspended in a Smartphone

Aula Gallery, The Strzemiński Academy of Arts

Łódź, Poland

Feira Morta VIII

ZDB - Galeria Zé dos Bois

Lisbon, Portugal

Entre Passados

MAC - Carmo Archaeological Museum

Lisbon, Portugal

Drawing(s) in Construction

Galeria de Santa Maria Maior

Lisbon, Portugal

Carmo, Chiado, and the Heart of Darkness

Maison du Portugal

Paris, France

Carmo, Chiado, and the Heart of Darkness

MAC - Carmo Archaeological Museum

Lisbon, Portugal

Carmo, Chiado, and the Heart of Darkness

Sala Acua / Centro de Iniciativas Culturales

Cuenca, Spain

Carmo, Chiado, and the Apparitions of Faust

Maison du Portugal

Paris, France

Carmo, Chiado, and the Apparitions of Faust

MAC - Carmo Archaeological Museum

Lisbon, Portugal

Carmo, Chiado, and the Apparitions of Faust

Sala Acua / Centro de Iniciativas Culturales

Cuenca, Spain

BASE LX

Sto. António da Barra Fort

Estoril, Portugal

Artrooms London 2019

Meliã White House

London, UK

12th Amadeo de Souza-Cardos Prize

Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso Museum

Amarante, Portugal

12 x 12 x 10

Santa Clara Market

Lisbon, Portugal

WRITINGS

"Não Me Falem de Arte" é um projeto iniciado em lockdown, no início de 2021 - uma publicação online, em que escrevo sobre arte e outras questões pelo meio da minha própria prática artística, e os muitos humores e desesperos a ela associados.

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O Vento

February 13, 2024

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49

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Regresso a Casa

November 11, 2022

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48

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O Clube Social dos Patos do Parque Oeste

May 16, 2022

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47

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Grandes Conclusões

April 30, 2023

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46

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A Verdadeira Maionese

April 1, 2022

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45

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Os Deuses Escondidos

Parte II

March 19, 2022

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44

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Os Deuses Escondidos

Parte I

February 19, 2022

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43

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O Último Dia do Resto da Minha Vida

February 12, 2022

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42

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Desenho à Vista

February 8, 2022

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41

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Cor-De-Burro-Quando-Foge

January 29, 2022

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40

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Queda Livre

January 22, 2022

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39

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Uma Corrida Contra o Tempo

January 14, 2022

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38

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Casa de Malucos

A Grande Loucura, Parte I

November 30, 2021

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37

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A Última Linha

November 10, 2021

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36

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Hipercondria

November 2, 2021

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35

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Entre Sonhos

Parte II

October 25, 2021

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34

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Entre Sonhos

Parte I

October 20, 2021

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33

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À Janela

October 10, 2021

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32

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Insuficiente

October 2, 2021

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31

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Nem Por Sombras

September 26, 2021

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30

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O Interminável Indeterminável

September 19, 2021

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29

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Os Nomes do Mundo

September 10, 2021

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28

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O Fim dos Tempos

September 5, 2021

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27

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Água

August 28, 2021

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26

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Entretanto

August 20, 2021

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25

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Ida e Volta

August 13, 2021

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24

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Isto Passa

August 6, 2021

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23

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Em Branco

July 30, 2021

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22

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Passeio Nocturno

July 23, 2021

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21

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Picasso Incompreendido

July 23, 2021

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20

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Perfume de Verão

July 9, 2021

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19

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Poesia e Prosa

July 2, 2021

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18

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Um Mundo de Possibilidades

June 25, 2021

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17

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O Fim da Macacada

June 18, 2021

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16

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Fotofobia

Parte II

June 11, 2021

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15

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Fotofobia

Parte II

June 4, 2021

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14

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Trabalhos Forçados

May 28, 2021

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13

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A Vida é Curta

January 28, 2021

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12

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Falhanço

May 14, 2021

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11

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Hammershøi

May 7, 2021

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10

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Fins de Tarde

April 30, 2021

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9

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Paisagens de Confinamento

April 23, 2021

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8

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As Pessoas Não Mudam?

April 16, 2021

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7

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Trabalho de Campo

April 9, 2021

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6

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A Morte do Artista

April 1, 2021

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5

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Os Vidros Duplos Fazem Mal à Saúde

Parte II

March 25, 2021

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4

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Uma Breve Introdução ao Artistês

March 19, 2021

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3

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O Fim do Mundo

March 11, 2021

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2

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Os Vidros Duplos Fazem Mal à Saúde

Parte I

March 5, 2021

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1

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Não Me Falem de Arte

March 2, 2021

Ler

Night of Saints

, 

2018

info & dimensions

⌄

Oil on canvas

150 x 100 cm

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Feel free to reach out with any questions, inquiries, or potential collaborations. I’d love to hear from you.