The first musical notes of "all this is fado" was the motto for the first strokes of Zonarte, an initiative of the artist Taciana Gouveia, which aims to make room for creativity and imagination of anyone who is willing to express themselves through mural painting. It is a fusion of artistic expression that led fado to the street, to the delight of the countless public who thronged to see the artists in action.

What was the goal that you have set for Zonarte?
Taciana Gouveia: The purpose of this initiative had as its primary objective to make accessible to artistic practice and beyond. It is in a very democratic project, because it is attainable by all. And when I decided to do it I immediately thought about this respect. Create an art project where everyone can participate. I, as an artist, I feel difficulties to expose my work. We all know that there are monopolies and big names that occupy the landscape of art and therefore it is not always as democratic as I would like it to be. It's called Zonarte, why? It's art in the old town, through mural painting.

The choice of the mural has a lot to do with the fact that it can be shared by many people?
TG: Yes, exactly. The project has been adhered by many of the artists and perhaps is to fill the need of expression that I just outlined. Of the lack of accessible and democratic spaces where people feel comfortable to intervene. A place where they can come and unleash their creativity and plastic achievement.

Did you have any difficulties getting support for the first edition of this event?
TG: No, although the project was just been released, lots of people showed up. The first panel was smaller and in this second edition I bet on a wall that is greater, twice as big, to address the lack of space of the previous edition. It just appeared more artists than I expected. In this show, we are portraying a theme of fado in this emblematic street of the old part of Funchal. Basically the challenge launched to the artists was to capture the essence of fado and express it artistically as they wish.

Mr Dheo is the pseudonym used by this urban artist that does not intend to hide behind anonymity, instead serves to reaffirm his originality and versatility of this graffiti and more recently the videos he makes. Forms of artistic expression that he uses to transmit alert messages to an increasingly chaotic and dehumanized society.

Your urban graffiti is art?
Mr Dheo: Graffiti is street art. In fact, it is the main exponent.

You think you have a defined style as a writer and what is that in your view?
MrD: In my opinion it is almost impossible to be original. When there is a relatively new junction is always the result of several things that have been made. In this sense I can never say that I have a style 100% created by me. But I have built my language and even if it had no signature or any reference to my name, could be easily recognized anyway. Over the years I've been collecting a lot of visual information, not only in terms of graffiti, which was shaping my work and how I express myself and that sets me apart. I seek, above all, be a complete and versatile writer.

Do you define yourself as an artist? Is the natural evolution that you wanted in professional terms? That is, it was part of the purpose of your life, or was something that just happened?
MrD: Today is my profession, but I did not plan it. So much so that I never studied art. As a child and throughout my youth always I had a strong connection with the design but never crossed my mind living of art. The passion and dedication that I have always had for the graffiti opened me many door to and gradually I realized that this addiction could turn into a way of life. And without ever forcing it to happened.

You think the only way to survive as a writer is to make your art into a commercial product, as you have done it?
MrD: My art did not become a commercial product. I chose the harder path, which is to accept to sell my work just like it is and how people see it on the street. I rejected several studies simply because they were not creative works, with the freedom that I think I should be given it. Brands and companies I work come to me thru the street art because they want me to conceptualize and create their image. And that's the only thing I do accept it. There are illustrators who have never done a work on the street and caught the wave and called themselves "street artists" and gain mighty bucks. These are commercial and are the ones that in months destroy what has been built for decades.

Trindade Vieira revisits in his work nature in its various forms of art, textures and shapes, based on his environmental concerns that he expresses through more environmentally friendly materials and pigments. One of these themes, most recently, reflects the universe of the island, through the banana trees, with displays that interpret the plant in its various forms, using the sap as paint that contrary to what one might think remains infinite in time. Unchanged like a fossil.

There is a strong component of the island in your work? It can be seen either by the nature of the textures or color.
Trinity Vieira: I'm very influenced by the environment where I am. It could be in another island, in another continent and would always be influenced by the environment. Because I live in Madeira a few months, so my influence comes from that, I was born here, I live here. I do not know if you noticed there is a great preponderance which is the banana.
Why the banana lief?
TV: I was born almost amid in the banana trees. My main studio is in the midst of them, before I worked in an improvise site. On the ground surrounded by the organic matter that I used in the paint and in some way related to nature, even if it was directly targeted to the banana. Then there was an inclination for the work to be connected with the plant. It took me a long time to discover techniques and ways to represent this new theme. I made a start in the first exhibition in which I discussed the texture, color and shape. From there I always continued to explore this new aspect, more like my idea to work.

Don't you fell inclined towards other artistic theories; shall we say more urban, installations?
TV: I've done things like that. Not always showed in Madeira, maybe that's why people do not know it. I have another kind of light work, for example, I also photograph, and in fact I do a lot of work as a research trial.

In the process of creation, first comes the idea, or there is a great research before the art work?
TV: It depends. In the case of the banana he is raised almost in an organic form, it is moving, the way I worked and textures to develop and now I'm using the sap. It was born in a very spontaneous. I did not try, he comes to me. The story of the sap comes from my childhood, I always played in the middle of the bananas, came home with stains on clothing, derived from the sap, which was no longer washable. From those moments arises the idea for this context. Although, I started later this approach. It does not start it flows. I do not have an idea of ​​what I will do tomorrow; I have a line of work to do next, often without looking.

The Mouraria art gallery promotes the work of artists at a national level. It is an innovative project, the result of a partnership between contemporary art and ancient art, which has lasted for ten years, in the same building. We went to view the new challenge posed by the gallery owner Ricardo Ferreira "counterpoint", which focuses on small works of art. Two disparate views on a particular subject.

Tell me the reason for this exhibition counterpoint?
Ricardo Ferreira: It is a time around Christmas, when the galleries are preparing collectives in small formats. That is, betting on some of the pieces of the artists who usually work with and thinking about the business side, because it a time of gifts, even for works of art, or is perhaps the best times of year to sell these works. This show has a feature, or at least a more original side, the gallery has selected a certain group of artists invited each to submit a piece of art for this collectively and in turn challenged them to display side by side, another artist of the gallery's permanent collection. The idea resulted in a curious thing, which is divided by three-room space. In all the walls are two works on display. The left symbolizes the artist presented by the gallery and on the right the sculpture, painting, photograph or drawing represents the work of the guest invited by the artist to this show.

What was the criterion of choice for the visiting artists?
RF: The criteria followed a great diversity of the various artistic fields. They include the four types of artistic theories that we disseminated and sold in permanence in this mixed collective. We try to vary a little in sculpture, painting, photography and drawing. The idea was to create a confrontation, in stereo, in harmony, or counterpoint, hence the name of the exhibition and to share wall space with someone of their choosing and not someone chosen by the gallery. The originality lies in this point and all the artists liked the idea and immediately joined the project now let's see the public reaction.

How do you define the world art in Portugal since you have a remarkable career in this area?
RF: My route as a gallerist has 15 years. Ahead of the philosophy of this gallery I’ve been here for ten, the previous years were devoted to a space in Setubal, which had branches in Porto and Madeira. I was then assigned to this satellite gallery in Funchal. The project ended, I untie myself from it and decided to stay here. Then came the opportunity to do a joint venture between a gallery and an antiques dealer. This kind of union between ancient and contemporary art, a place with antiques and an art gallery at the same time, in the same building for the locals, but not only. Mouraria art gallery is also facing towards the people from the mainland from north to south and the visiting abroad public.

They buy art?
RF: Tourists represent a large number of visitors, but they do not buy. Most collectors of art are local, or nationals and foreign represent a very symbolic percentage.

It is a treatise on her personal journey thru the various representations of her artistic progressive construction and limited at the same time. A process rapped by time and the physical fragility of the artist. She has the eyes that swallow the world that is yet to be discovered and unravel. This is the vision of Carla Cabral, the artist.

How do you define this bio-grafiapresa, is a return to childhood?

Carla Cabral: It's a memoir, not a reference to childhood. It's my route until today. We can find in this work all the techniques I already used, since I started working. The drawing, the acrylic, the oil, the collage and video installation. It's a great mix of languages ​​and addressing mainly to me, my route.

One of the works is a diary of some sorts ...

CC: I cannot part away from my notebooks. They are always behind me. I carry them with me since 1993. They are present in this exhibition that I took a few pages from 1996 to 2011, addressing the construction of other exhibits that I had at other times of the techniques that were needed and the types of frames. Then there's personal notes too, has references to my friends. The most important people in my life are there, are all represented, have not forgotten anyone. Messages that I wrote and was written to me. Do not know if you noticed, there is a work with 39 bottles was made by people who know me, I asked them to write a word that defines me, with their help I build my self-portrait.

I noticed in the open and closed cages. What symbolize?

CC: That's why I call my biography prey. It has to do with my life path. Myself. I'm stuck because of a disease. It's my cage.

In this exhibition I see that you use several techniques. It is a constant in your work?

CC: This is the first time I use all in a single exposure. I have used them at other times. I proposed myself to remake all the techniques. It also facilities in order to show myself-biography, from a home video in which I had five years old until the age of 40. Has this entire route.

In early 2010, Nair Morna made the crossing of a public art project in the city of Galway, Ireland, to the streets of Santa Maria, located on an island lost somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. The idea took shape and there are various forms of performance of MAD Space Invaders in the city of Funchal. An artistic intervention that enhances the architectural heritage of the town, with the valuable help of their already about 30 members with an indomitable will to transform neglected and abandoned spaces into real works of art.

In what context arise Madeira Space Invaders?
Roberto Macedo Alves: It was an idea of ​​Morna Nair. The first member of the group, who saw that there was in Ireland a group of artists who came together to make interventions in abandoned and despised spaces and were transformed into mini-cultural center for some time. She thought the concept could be applied to Madera, so she joined a group of friends and create the Space Invaders. The idea was to invade in the optic of having the permission of the authors and owners of the spaces that would allow us to do some interventions.

It is difficult to convince owners and the local authorities to make such interventions?
RMA: Sometimes it is, though now it is becoming easier; because people are begin to attach importance to this concept of public art, because it has worked. Thanks to the impact of the open doors at Rua de Santa Maria, people begin to see that these paintings are good in public spaces. Serves to enhance these buildings and to bring people who are not accustomed to dealing with art and culture in to the day-to-day life, it exhibit works of art in their pathway. Suddenly, the people who live here look at the doors and murals, residents who have never entered an art gallery and you end up creating another kind of feeling for painting. They look at the drawings, analyze, evaluate and give their interpretation, and never before have had the opportunity to enter a museum and now suddenly have another opening for this type of artistic expression. Local authorities are beginning to see his type of intervention with a positive impact and have worked out in an increasingly intense way. In the case of this mural was easier, it is a private building, so that the heirs have authorized the intervention on the facade.

José María Zyberchema came from Madrid and was conquered by the beauty of the island of Madeira. It was like love at first sight and soon he realizes that there were buildings in the city of Funchal in need of a new facelift, an artistic intervention. The project art of the open doors was born. The idea gradually won the hearts of the citizens who had lost the respect for its heritage and the world that visit then.

What is the project of open doors?

José María Zyberchema: It began in August of 2010. As an idea to change the streets in the city, it was heart breaking taking photos of these abandoned buildings and so I did a conference with these images. Well, I decided to intervene in such places and so appeared the open doors, painting, sculpture, with any of the arts.

Why the street of Santa Maria in Funchal?

JMZ: It really could have been that or other streets that are quite damaged in the city. But, Santa Maria is one of the oldest and a passageway, where you see lots of people and the feeling remained that was not a pleasant walk. Well, now there are about 150 doors intervened at first when I proposed the idea to the city of ​​Funchal, I thought about two hundred, or more, but it was planned to have a beginning and a timeless end and not as the events that last a few days, a week or a month, I wanted all this to be in the street as long as it needed.

Alice Sousa defines herself as a Jewish wandering in the world. Her career reflects all the places where she went, people she knew the writers and the words that filled the days of longing for her homeland and loves lost in the waves of memory. A work that is an ongoing journey due to her personal disquietude.

The waters of time have a strong poetic message and swallows. There is an underlying idea of wandering?
Alice Sousa: It's possible. I am a very restless. It has an affinity with Guida Vieira in that matter. We worked together in the studio at Lido until 2000, and our empathy was mainly because there was restlessness within us. We always try to allay that feeling with one another. I was really a Jewish wandering in the world. I was in Belgium, just passing through in Venezuela and lived in Brazil, in Rio Grande do Sul. It was a great distance from Rio de Janeiro, were 36 hours by bus. In this current phase of my life, I'm in a downward cycle and do not want to sound pessimistic, I write to friends who have gone before, the poets who I loved and love, the trips I've ever done for this world and I can do no more for personal reasons. I enjoyed it all and maybe that is reflected in my paintings.

This exhibition is accompanied by music of Chico Buarque, why?
AS: Well, Chico Buarque was architecture student and colleague of my brother, had a choir in college and they set up a play called "freedom, freedom", in which enter the late Paulo Autran and Lygia Fagundes Telles, who also was very good actress. It was an extraordinary spectacle, interrupted constantly to applaud the actors and the music was by Chico Buarque. The turntable also links me to Guida because I bombarded her with his music. It was a "massacre". She had to listen so much and hear that it was her suggestion to put music at the exhibition.
Brazil is always present in your work? In your previous work this is reflected somewhat in line, in the bold colors.
AS: Yes, you know, I did painting the fourth year in Porto. I asked equivalence when I went to Brazil do the fifth and sixth year and then I graduated. So, in college they liked me so much, because I had chosen that country to study, to the detriment of my studies, they let me do what I ever I wanted.

Why then Brazil to study?
AS: From Belgium, I was briefly in Venezuela and there I went to the headquarters of the university and a teacher told me: here you will not learn anything. Go to a place that has a convention and also because my father loved Brazil, it was their way of being as a people. They are extraordinary, after winning their trust.

The trip comes through the birds that appear in the paintings?
AS: Yes, the birds have come from Porto. Master Gomes said that we were at the time of the wings. I think that has to do a bit of that time with the regime, which was quite oppressive. The trips also arise because it comes from an exhibition planned by the cooperative tree.

His irreverence, irony and sense of humor may be seen on the streets of Portuguese cities. Belongs to a chain of urban expression that does not hold between the conventions of artistic boundaries. He defines himself as someone who exposes his work to the public without intermediaries. It is one of the new heralds of modernity, which does not hide his identity for fear, but because he does not want the message to be corrupted by natural curiosity for the messenger instead of the message.

The type of prints you do on the walls, or other urban structure, is art in your point of view?
Adres: I've noticed that people just see it like that, but in my view are more an urban intervention. Do not consider myself an artist.

Do you think that what you do and others like you belong to an urban trend, is an evolution in terms of concepts of what art is?
A: I do not know if it's an evolution, but in my opinion, a trend is more interesting than the "normal". Who exhibits his work in the street, communicates more directly with the public and cut with an intermediary, who is the museum, or gallery. In addition, sometimes there is the factor of illegality of the work, which makes things more difficult.

Your work is based on irony, but has a hint of rebellion; this is because you are dissatisfied with the current values of society and is your way to show it?
A: I just try. I think I've realized that our society is not a good path to follow and the material is well above the sentimental. I try to enjoy it all and it may be that by the way, can do a little light to those who stop to question.

Ferraz erraz is an artist who looks at her work as a route of clearance. Searches the simplicity, through another language, evident in her artistic interpretation of life. Search for a truth. Through the waters of time it initiates a trip, a certain search, somehow is a wandering loneliness until I... reach you. An exhibition to be seen in the Pleasures Gallery.

What is the idea behind this exhibition?
Guida Ferraz: Usually in my work I use the mixed technique. I stopped for a while, but used before more oil on wood and other materials. Put pieces of various objects. This time I decided to work the design. Here the technique is used in glue mixed with parchment paper and it gives me the chance to play with transparencies. The hide and let on, but not see through. I think the potential is there.

Swallows why?
GF: The swallows have to do with a course, a certain demand. All works are based on a sonnet of Pablo Neruda, a sentence that says that wandering loneliness until I reach you. In the background gives an idea of ​​a journey, to be looking for anything.

It's a lonely path?
GF: Yes, is a search for truth. A place in the world, of being itself, in the general sense of love. To feel good about her and it was this path that I wanted to show, through another language. Hence the swallows, which also has a lot to do with my childhood. I was born in Africa and I remember having them close to home in the eaves. It is a beautiful bird and I think the idea is linked in nature. There is a demand for certain simplicity. A need to move towards peace, leaving behind everything that is more superfluous.

Africa is always in the background of your work?
GF: Not directly. Arises by chance. I went to a place where the swallows came and memory recall, but here I try to debug more. Is a need for me to go debugging.

Do you feel a need to tell a story through your works?
GF: Maybe deep inside is not a story with a beginning, middle and end. It's more a need to go Debugging, simplifying to go until you come toward simplicity.

Many of the pieces produced are new interpretations of famous paintings, which did you sought with these artistic pursuits?
GF: I think that deep down I tried something very striking. Despite of "graving" the works of other artists, is a form of expression much mine own. But sometimes I do not know why I do it.