Welcome To Portugal

JÁ FOI (EXPLICIT) – OIL PAINTING

From above, they laugh at you and me. Are they truly so unreachable? It may be true that only the rich can become richer, but now, without a heart? Where is the one who can stop this? Has the neighbor already forgotten to care for his neighbor? We are lost in an empty world, and you, alongside me, are on this desolate land surrounded by tents, where the difference becomes more evident.

We tear through the skies trying to reach that dream implanted in us since childhood, as our parents, as an example that times change, sacrificed hours, days, months, years to give us the best. Helplessness is the word we all search for when we see the faces of the demons dressed in blue. It is already too late, and they are unreachable; no one can stop them, and not even my art can represent the crudeness of reality. When you don’t have enough money, you are alien to their minds, insignificant to what they want. Even so, reality surpasses my humble fiction, which is only this: it is already too late to do anything; there will be no houses to live in.

“A VIEW FROM LISBON (AV.ALM.REIS 84, LISBON) “ – OIL PAINTING

The observer walked through the wide and strangely inhabited streets of a capital from which the native flees. For me, it was a visual adventure, crossing each street and seeing people living in tents, which seemed surreal next to the large buildings luxurious on the inside but dirty on the outside. I especially stopped on a street where an authentic work of art was there in front of me: a real estate store vandalized with red paint and broken windows; over the logo, red paint practically covered the name. It looked recent, like a habitual act, something that is already part of everyday life and does nothing but cause temporary damage, only to be cleaned up later and continue as if nothing had happened. I found the scene beautiful. Unfortunately, the time I passed by there was early, and it was closed. The red paint represents the people who have already ended up in worse fates thanks to these thieves, waiting for a house that would never drop in price, like a dog whose owner died a long time ago, leaving it with no other option but… to live on the street.

They are the blind sellers; if nothing exists outside their bubble, then there is nothing there. For them, who lower prices after raising them and adding a 0, prices can no longer be higher. Unfortunately, time will prove me wrong, but this factory of evicted people will wreak havoc in the streets, an unsolvable situation while those who can act are concerned only with their precious money.

WELCOME TO PORTUGAL (EXPLICIT) – OIL PAINTING

From the last balcony, the camel from the East greets you, who with his dark money no longer knows how to cause more harm. His mouth, full of bills, looks down as a man looks at ants, from above, over everything. In front of him, no one but fortune’s favorite, the rich child heir to everything that has ever existed, for whom the only amusement is to play like a man with his dog, with the dreams of others. He throws crumbs to the pigeons hungry for money. As can be seen, below him is a fat man, full of imperfections and vices, who wouldn’t mind falling from the balcony just to get a little more money, without fear of trampling anyone who crosses his path.

Right in front of him, from Asia, they greet us with their hands full of bills and their mouths as well, with wicked smiles looking at us, watching how they can surpass us, the pinnacle of human evil in person. Outside the properties, the two most famous thieves in Portugal can be distinguished, those who left the Portuguese family out in the street. The blind of this country, the people who don’t see that with every property sale, we are closer to a political and intellectual war.

To top it off, the two divas: one who no longer even has a brain and the other who isn’t even human, two divas from another world who understand nothing, as empty as the look of disdain given to a beggar asking for alms.

I present to you a city full of decay that has opened its doors to the most powerful, closing its eyes to its citizens, who can no longer live in the city where their grandparents grew up. They are welcome to no one, those who cannot pay the money demanded just to live, just to escape from wherever they come from. Injustice is inevitable.

The Cynical Bridge of the Repentant (LIVE) OIL PAINTING

“This was my journey through a distant land, in a country I didn’t know. It felt like living an eternity, almost a year in Matosinhos. I enjoyed walking through the streets like any other person and seeing how crowded they are during the summer, not only because of tourism but due to the goals of many people from outside these lands. The Ponte Móvel de Leixões is another route on the Camino de Santiago, which welcomes pilgrims every year, who pass briefly through Matosinhos and for an even shorter time over the Ponte Móvel de Leixões. I, dressed as a humble worker, crossed the windy bridge during winter and returned in the summer, when I saw countless people, more than happy, walking briskly with the eyes of tourists, with large, heavy backpacks, wearing sports clothes but not too warmly dressed. I was just one more, like many Portuguese who live here, and appreciate the visit of our European brothers, who are welcomed like any other believer in faith. Even if you are not a believer, you can see that each person crosses the bridge with a sense of remorse, aiming to heal their faith and leave their past life behind. For this reason, before criticizing, we should look at ourselves and not be prejudiced.

In my paintings, I like to portray the world beneath everything; it is a separate world where some things become transparent. The faces and gazes of our travelers on the bridge give us information about them. Similarly, I saw in my mind a bridge full of repentant and imperfect people, but after finishing this work, also imperfect, when looking at its sky and every detail, I can transport myself to that world where a windy bridge moves the leaves of the trees, where the stone pavement, built many decades ago, gives way to a modern bridge that leaves you in awe with its infrastructure. And in the distance, you can see how full is The cynical bridge of the repentant. “