It is a space full of color, tradition and innovation in Portuguese tiles. It is located in the heart of the historic center of Porto and also offers a wide range of regional crafts that tell the story of a people, through various materials, such as is told by its founder.

The idea of ​​opening a space to display Portuguese crafts, in particular tiles, it happened how?
Francisco Ribeiro: Personal taste. I also do. I have craft shops for more than twenty years. Just happened. I go to the fairs, the news are there. These are people who are not yet included in the business and it is their first opportunity to show their work is in these places, the City hall pays the stands. But artisans have also come to me.

In what parts of the country where we can still find these artisans?
FR: It's in the North and Alentejo. It is always in the poorest areas. As for the location, the more the need, the more appear. It's like the rest of the world, is not it? In England artisans are artists. In Africa they are all artisans. Here is the same. The standard of living is low and people earn little. Most artisans are retired, are the best, or have another profession and craft is a kind of hobby.

Who's the kind of people who enjoy crafts?
FR: The tourists.

Is there a specific audience that buys more than others?
FR: It depends on the seasons. It is inconsistent; there are times when there are more Spanish or Russian.

The Portuguese buy crafts? The tile in particular?
FR: Not much. I restore mostly for the area of ​​restoration, when there are missing five or six tiles on a wall they contact me. There are few people interested, but now there is more. I am a collector of tiles; I started twenty years ago, when everything was going to waste. The first ones that I got picked from a construction site, I asked the workers to stay with some going to waste, tiles were from the seventeenth-century.

Nuno Cordeiro addresses the design of furniture through a long look at what surrounds him. A work inspired by the Portuguese landscapes, rural and urban areas, which is translated into unique pieces of high quality.

What is the vision you have for your furniture?
Nuno Cordeiro: My work is inspired by the Portuguese landscapes. The terraces of Alto Minho, the houses in Oporto and the landscape of a digital map of ripple. These tables were literally copied from the forms of the fields in the municipality of Megalhaço. My grandfather was a woodmaker and had a workshop and produced furniture and what remained were wood waste that I have been using. Each had a different format and thickness. Then I remembered to associate these two strands with the geography of Melgaço, all fields in this area also has different forms and heights to support the slopes.

The pieces are all so different?
NC: Exactly. They are unique and original pieces. As the size of the larger piece that I have I attach the other to create a table.

What kind of materials do you use?
NC: I use exotic woods from Brazil and Africa. The mahogany, rosewood and beech. There are parts that I used of chipboard, paper and vinyl sticker.

João Pedro Pupo is the young talent responsible for the concept design of JPPupo. A project that aims to promote his work of illustration and digital painting, which is one of the goals he wants to achieve in the near future.

Tell me a little of your project. What is the vision of jppupo designs?
João Pedro Pupo: It is a form of expression. It is to show my work in all social networks. That's main point and to establish links and be able to enjoy this form of communication that allows me to enhance business contacts. I want to create a personal page with my work, which is a reflection of myself. I do not have a portfolio to consistently put in there, I want to create something more complex.
How do you define your illustrations?
JPP: My kind of design is based on long construction phase of artistic personalities. I am still not sure what I do with my life and what I like. I know I would like to do, but do not know what I'll be allowed to go ahead. So I try to expand my designs more these areas and to be able to get a job. What I like best is a design that is connected to the illustration, although it is more abstract. One afternoon I was watching a movie that is "troll hunter" and do not know why I was inspired and made a drawing. I like the psychedelic side of the illustration. This has much to do with my music influences.
Who are your references in terms of design?
JPP: I started my interest in the illustration, though it did not learn this area of ​​digital painting in order to develop concepts for movies and games. There's a man from Singapore, Feng Zhu, who works in this area and its illustrations are amazing, has a design studio. He has worked for movies like "Transformers." A person sees his work and is just inspired. Alex Grey, is another very important source of inspiration for me. Not in the digital part, but for his work in the area of ​​psychedelia.
How you begin your creative process?
JPP: I begin both the level of manual or digital sketches from anything. I do lines in the page, then see what starts to form. Sometimes I have an original idea in mind, but not always the end result is the same. I never know what I will do. I always start by sketching and then see where it goes, if it is for me. For other people already have an idea of ​​what I do. As the poster for "flora mac2012", which is something I like to develop. It was designed in fotoshop and then put a web of textures.

http://www.facebook.com/jppupo.design

It is a young artist looking for confrontation by the way she display the world in her works. Her art has a dual dynamic that inspires horror and at the same time inspires a great stylistic beauty. Generates disgust, but draws the viewer into a surreal narrative, full of character.

How do you define your artistic universe?

Ana Gomes: It's based on what I see and interpret. All this around me. I do not think too much on concepts, or theories. I like to understand what is around me, what I can bring and what I can feel it should be. If I see a person, for example, with more ordinary look, with an expression or stance different of usual, all that conveys emotions and an image that I try to transmit thru my work. I like to create a narrative around the characters, with the color, and its composition. Sometimes they are literal, others are not. I leave that to the viewer.

Many of your characters have characteristics taken from insects. Remind me of the pictures of these little animals, but magnified.

AG: Yes, I love insects. They are alien creatures we have on our planet. Seeing them with the naked eye I cannot see how they are. Indeed, in these photographs of which you speak, there are thousands of things, eyes, fur, shells and various joints.

You do a detailed search?

AG; Yes, I am constantly searching for strange animals, insects that are discovered recently. Above all, use these images to get ideas. They are based in the real world.
I note that you do many album covers for bands. How do they find you?
AG: When I started working with bands, including Karnak Seti, it all started because I knew some members and they liked my illustrations, so I started to develop a joint work. They gave me a lot of creative freedom, because they were very fond of my imagination and my draw. From there I started doing illustrations for them. After that has been a sequence. Other bands have seen these works, my portfolios online and contacted me.

What is the feedback that you will get the general public when it comes to your so unusual illustrations?

AG: The comment I hear often is, this woman is so ugly, but it is beautiful. People like the work itself, but are afraid of the creatures that represent the darker environment. They love the drawings and say it's beautiful, well-made and executed, but they feel afraid.

That's what you looking for? This reaction?

AG: Yes I have always had a passion for the beautiful ugly, which is a beauty almost marginalized, which is not nice to everyone and I like to define my audience who appreciates my work to this point, they see how beautiful these creatures are, regardless of their physical appearance. Then I take a more human expression to the most abhorrent creatures. Today, society lives for a stereotype of thinness. With the arrival of summer, people get crazy, because they want to lose weight to look pretty for others. Indeed, we live in a society like this, I try to educate the gaze of others to show that not everything that is beautiful to everyone, is beautiful to me, learn to look at another kind of beauty. Do not go with the flock. Look around you and see something different from others. But also accept that what we see is also beautiful.

He's Portuguese, although at first glance it doesn't seem like that, either in the language or in the name, Hernando Urrutia has an artistic journey that is connected to the principle of the origins of human communication, the symbols. A regression to the origins that he constantly renews in his conceptual work and which emerges as a new visual concept that depends on the interpretation of each one of us.

How you became an artist?
Hernando Urrutia: It comes from an intellectual demand. I was a college professor and was invited by some anthropologists, sociologists and geologists to do a field research in the Amazon. They wanted someone with knowledge of design, wanted an artist to draw objects and elements that were part of this research. I went and I was in love with this investigation, for this different world, away from our Western concept, which made me reflect on the signs, as how they did the pictographs, as how they echoed these voices and why write it all.

The exhibition is a regress to the 26-year career? Why you wanted to do this now and how it all began?
HU: Yes, it is a setback of twenty-six years. This was an idea I had already at the 20-year career anniversary, was preparing an exhibition in the fortress of St. James, the project could not move on by lack of funds. Except however, on the anniversary of twenty-five year there was the possibility of a large format book with a publisher on the mainland, but due to the restrictions of the current situation of the country decided to make a more modest and simple one, without passing by the opportunity. Sometimes, we wait too long to do certain things and we shouldn't. It was a debt that I had with the gallery Mouraria, because since I arrived, after two months, I was exposing here thanks to Ricardo. After I was sick and had many problems and this made everything delayed. Now I'm better, I decided to do it, a modest display. This exhibition has a double meaning, is a setback for the career and the language of our ancestors. The symbols were important, were in the woods, the walls were later converted to a language. Signs emerge of experiences and studies done with ethnic groups in South America and also of African origin. I have two different aspects of language perception of the symbol. Although we have two cultures in the same continent, they report two different approaches within the theme of the sign. There were different times and different cultures of mankind that have always had this symbol to represent the same, even the Nordic, South American and African structures. What happens? Man has the same concerns on life, of the ordinary, what is natural and the sky. All are equal in all parts, as times differ in centuries. These signs are studied why? The man is the same. What makes me think it is as a man of a specific culture follow the same theme.

You also speak of the indivisible. This approach meets your conceptualist art?
HU: Yes, the symbols say certain things and the only way to represent them is that way. There is no other way, the indivisible is that you cannot put into words, but in a sign that speaks of many things at once, identifying symbols and significances. The indivisible is pretty much the way a very important critic found very important to define my work. It represents what we cannot speak, what cannot be said. This is one facet of the human being, an emergency, the desire to say what we cannot translate in words.

These works represent a setback, but at the same time symbolize a breakthrough in one direction.
HU: Yes, it is a work of the present moment, looking at the past and the future. The work is timeless. Today may be contemporary, but depends on the context. If you see this work say in a cave is ancient. But if you look at another position, say that is different and the work assert that the future is very contemporary. The situation depends on temporality.

Cristina Perneta is a sensitive artist, attentive to the small things that surround us and she transforms these essences of the soul in masterpieces that tentatively suggest alternative worlds, other life experiences.

You have three components that recur in your work, light, land and water. Why are so important these elements?

Cristina Perneta: Yes it is true, is one way to find this peace. I identify with that kind of energy, of that empathy.

Generally you end up addressing the nature and with different artistic media.

CP: It has to do with my way of being. What do I look? It's what I do in my day to day, whether in painting, drawing, what I like to create.

One of your exhibitions addresses the laurel forest, why you have chosen this topic?

CP: It's something that fascinates me for what is behind the topic itself. Nature. Feel that part as a whole. Basically we are all one. This connection turns out to create this network with people. Nature moves this harmony, this peace.

The show ground, air and fire are another approach of the same subject. In this there is a strong multimedia view ally with other aspects of art.

CP: That was an experience between what I do and the elements that nature has created, taking into account our direction. Leave this do to nature, for example, the sun is a destroyer, but at the same time is a creator. The water itself also falls into this dynamic. Then I rehearsed the various senses, touch, smell, etc... I used the basic elements such as light, to create a texture and color change in the object itself.

The artistic work of Paulo Sergio Beju implies an involvement of the viewer, its touch, its thinking and its feeling. It is a reflection of the non-obvious. The appearance is transformed, transmuted into the art object itself. It is a reflection on life and the world around us.

Your work explains various artistic components from the word, collages, installations and the pen. From what point you depart?
Paulo Sergio Beju: I depart from a very simple point that is life. It has a large component that is poetry and therefore extends to all forms of expression from painting, sculpture, writing, and maybe this has a lot to do with my experience, I've done theater for ten years. The theater implies a space, a body and its sensations. This causes the proliferation of plenty forms of expression. There are always works that arise from painting, drawing and writing. There is not a specific area.

You mix a bit of everything. You use various techniques in your work.
PSB: Yes, because there are no tight areas. I mix everything. There is not a sculpture for a sculpture, painting by painting. There's always my personal touch.

Since the beginning of your career?
PSB: No. There is an evolution in the work that I am developing and a growth.

So when did you come up this new work method?
PSB: I think it started in 2002 with my first art show. There were many mixed concepts, photography, installation and drawing. I made a connection to the surrounding area for those who like to feel involved. When creating a piece, the viewer is almost in a way an artist; he creates a relationship with the work. When I put together my first exhibition I want to overcome this idea of ​​the painting on the wall, had to be more, had to be engaging.

How do you define yourself? In addition to been a painter, you illustrate books, but also write.
PSB: I define myself only as an artist. Even when I'm doing an illustration, I'm not being a mere illustrator, because my concern goes beyond the simple fact that it is to illustrate a text. More than that is an immersion. People feel the need to play with that illustration, there is something there that messes with them and I did that in the last book.

Like the book of Valter Hugo Mae?
PSB: In Valter's book was different, but that means people almost feel the texture of the drawing. The drawings are with a pen, people told me it was something so basic, yes, but I like this process of repeating, repeating, and repeating until you create an image and that this implies? What you can do it also with a pen and I question that. What is to be an artist? It is this complex issue that I try to bring to my work, to play, mix everything and I think the result is happy.

Lucilina Freitas divides herself between teaching and the creation of three-dimensional universes which its result confuses the observer leading him to question itself the art object. Her intention is to argue and go beyond the visible without ever misrepresenting the essence of her creation.

What you decided to create for this exhibition?
Lucilina Freitas: I decided to create these glasses of liquor, was a piece I have used several times, and has to do with my training in design. I am not able to pick up a bottle and put in there figurative elements. I always liked cleaner works.

It reflects the island somehow?
LF: No, it's a set of things that I have inside; I do not know where I got them.
But, you have chosen a set of glasses that are related to regionalism.
LF: I did not intend to follow the regionalism. I took the glasses of liquor, and I offer a recipe on the package of tin-tun-tan and tangerine liquor. It's something we very much appreciate the touch of glass, I did not intended to paint pottery, for now at least not yet. Perhaps belongs to a set of memories that we have within and we throw out here without thinking too much about it, however the intention was not to approach the island and its customs.

What is your material of choice?
LF: My work has always been a bit of all three components, painting, sculpture and installation. I made a table that may not look like it but it is an exercise of painting. It is a reflection, is a design or the image is painted? In my first works I idealized figures introduce in a set of furniture. What did I do? I took them from the canvas and passed them to a three dimension existence.

What you choose first the concept or you dried immediately for the installation?
LF: The concept. If you give me a theme, I develop from that on. A conducting thread, a theme, maybe what the viewer sees is that the end the works of art are connected to each other. However, I haven't worked hard, I have two experiences of individual shows. I create isolated pieces of art, in most cases. But whenever there is a proposal I develop it in my language, in my world, I do what I like.

The work of Jose Pinho reflects a conceptualization of two binomials, man and the environment in which it inserts. Human kind and the planet. A creative language that combines the concept in various levels of perception, in its various dimensions and shapes.

You live on this island for some time now. This aspect has an influence on your work?
Jose Pinho: Not necessarily. My conceptual process is not much about the island. This usually associated with urban life, than to a specific area.

Do you have preference for ceramics; "Antipodes" is an example.
JP: When I think of the world, try to do it in general terms. This work had an ethereal sense. The fact that the faces seem to be thick and seem floating had to do with the concept of a totem of the Indians who had been dismembered. This was the starting point; the arrival is the work itself. I never limit myself to one object.

Then, you start first by the concept and then you create the object?
JP: Exactly. The process of creation and production has a say in developing the concept. I define the beginning, but I don't completely define the end. There are things you are doing that suggest other solutions that are much better from those that arise from the start in your head.

What inspires you when approach a concept?
JP: One of the concepts that always inspires me the most is the relationship between man and his environment. The relationship with space and distance that man has with the planet. When the theme is urban, I refer to certain impersonality, the fact that we isolate ourselves in the web of the city at heart we live together and everyone is very alone. It is this relationship that has always influenced my starting point. It's a thought for whatever I do. I'm never completely stuck to a time.

They say the art is nothing more than lines and shadows that make stand out volume. This is a perfect setting for the work of the artist Guareta Coromoto that challenges our attention with its constant movement perpetuated by the colors and the characters that populate her canvases.

Your works are a constant development of the figure, either human or animals. Why do you feel this need?
Guareta Coromoto: I think there are things that live with us. Often in a work, even if you begin only with colors, we artists have many ways to start, we have to have a theme and we always start the line, but then we realize that many times we take another path. What happens? I can open the color, but from there I start to imagine a story were is always the human figure or animals. Create a story around that work. I think that ultimately all that is in us, come to us. These characters are inside.

The characters of the daily lives or of your imagination?
GC: From everyday and imaginary. Often I will get it from the stories I heard as a girl, other than my mother tells me, some ancestors. I insert legends, tales and stories, things that are part of the imaginary and others who I recreate.

In his paintings there is a trait with very strong colors, this component is a result of your South American origins or the island?
GC: When I started working in the fine art the pallet was more neutral, as was the human figure, I used greens, blues, ochres and grays. Over time there colors began to protrude and come out here. I began using yellow and also to excel the red, pink and there was a day that I decided to try some shades that fill my soul. Now I do not know if it's because they are inside, or by being born in a South American country, as much as we do not live there they say it gets us. The fact is that I like the music, the rhythm.

The colors highlight the stories you tell on the canvaas, to what extent?
GC: They help by giving it more magic, more contrast. I even use a few, the most obscure has more light, turn out to bring out more forms. I can use black as a contrast to emphasize more the shape and use color to bring out the light and certain volumes.