Betar

Hermes
Fortunately I was fortunate to have parents who always made me want to discover and know (…) worked as a kind of “fuse”, from there I began to develop my own curiosity and like to discover and realize, or not to understand at all, experiment, fail, wonder or disappoint me.
[Art means] everything and nothing. Sometimes the most redundant things can stay with me for a long time and eventually come to the surface at the time of creation (…) I believe that my inspiration is born mainly from boredom or the sensitivity I seek in other human beings.
I believe that time and place will always influence who creates. I think the challenge is also in those factors and in the fact that it never gets too comfortable. There is a letter from the new Bahians, which I like very much, that says: “I am showing how I am and I am being how I can, throwing my body in the world, walking everywhere and by the natural law of meetings”.
I find it quite easy to show what is created, there are numerous platforms and fortunately the art no longer depends on certain circles to make itself seen. However, this wide range of advertising makes everything seem fast and easily disposable. It is not to think about it and create.

Miguel Ângelo Marques
The interest in art comes from regular living from an early age with an uncle painter, the summer days were spent in his studio and this awakened the painter in me. What he said was visiting an exhibition of Hugo Canoilas in 2010, at CCVF, called “Endless Killing”. When I left there I knew that what I really wanted to do was to awaken that amazement in others through surfaces full of paint.
He could not do anything but paint, the creative process comes as an intrinsic need and a constant prevalence of an artistic thought always in tension with what I see.
My painting stems a lot from an experience so where I am and how live the events are extremely important actions, they will shape the spirit with which I enter the studio, preferably with a head full of images and painting.

Maria Luísa Capela
Art was emerging in a way inseparable from life. All my memories include the time to be sitting or lying down with sheets of paper ahead, with so many other materials to dirty everything, usually totally oblivious to adult conversations. (…) I managed to replace my athletic life for the salvation of this dear table of quiet kids.
What I see and what I feel are the engines for what I do, hence recognizing that my work has become increasingly autobiographical, reflecting what I think and the concerns I have. My work corrects mistakes and remakes new ones, in an imperfect symbiosis such as I grow and deconstruct the illusion of adult life.
Space/place is crucial to and how we live within our work and how we begin to express ourselves in different media. Time follows in a soup of letters in which it never matters what came first.
Regarding the exhibition at the Grémio Literário; the choice of a third of the finalists and an artistic residence with them, seem to me all rare initiatives that will germinate good seeds.

Ana Malta
Art, in the broadest sense of the word, was always present in my life due to my coexistence and closeness with my grandfather – the great Portuguese opera singer Álvaro Malta. The need to express myself artistically started from a very young age and became more marked when I discovered materials such as oil bars.
[My work is] a presence. A character. Balance. Contrast. Error as an opportunity. Error as a tool. During the creative process, all tangible expressions meet and dynamize themselves in an unconsciously solid way. The colors are scattered around the base and, as in our nature, seem to have instincts, feelings… An irrational knowledge about paths and harmony. Figures, portraits, words, shapes… Belong to the support.
Time and place are the basis of any work. Directions and new searches come exactly from change. Change of time, day, life, place, being, being.
I think that in Portugal there is little dialogue, little time and little availability. Many creations – besides excellent – and a lot of motivation that, unfortunately, is easily abandoned due to various external stimuli.

Afonso Alves
I started drawing when I was little, like everyone else. I just didn’t stop.
The biggest problem for those who choose to pursue arts is the lack of funding, [this type of initiatives] is one of the best ways to achieve it!
[Regarding the promotion of work] there is too much haste on the part of young people to show work, prematurely I would say. I speak of myself, of course. In short there is no shortage of places to exhibit. However, there are few that coincide in the matter of being ready for it and having the opportunity.

Rita Paisana
Since I can remember, art and its means, especially drawing and painting, have always been the most natural way to communicate and relate to the world.
[Inspires me] everything I absorb in my day-to-day, visual or non-visual. I build inner worlds based on sets of sensations, images, literary references… these worlds are constantly changing.
The structural elements of my work are materiality, brightness and color. I seek a balance that is intuitive to me.

Ana Romãozinho
[Art] was probably always there, in the kind of look I dedicate to the world. This look approached me to the painting, by color and fluid gesture on a flat surface; (…) the paintings are simply there, do not ask for time to anyone, do not call, are silent, express themselves discreetly free and enigmatic. Maybe that’s why they’re so fascinating.
On the one hand, nature inspires me – its beauty, goodness, and its surprising strength and fury. On the other hand, it inspires me to be the human being – his innate ability to understand, rationalize, create systems, communicate and try to explain the world. It inspires me music; dance; all the artists that surprise me. It inspires laughter, humor, fun and complicity.
[Regarding the initiative], all companies have a human side and all Man benefits from contact with art. Thus, it is always happy to see a great company connected with its human side, valuing culture, through the sensitive and free expression of the artists it decides to support. By being interested in the young, he announces the direction of his gaze on the future. The residence confirms the generosity of the company and the commitment to accompany the artists.

Francisco Venâncio
To be an artist is to persist in the search for answers in a place where only questions are reached.
My work is developed through drawing, painting and sculpture. It is situated in a place of fiction that confronts reality by challenging references, notions or signs through a practice that rewards experimentation, appropriation or speculation.
This initiative by Betar becomes very relevant and distinctive for an artistic sector that implodes in the search for public funding.

Guilherme Figueiredo
Imagine a bridge. It creates connections between distant points. It allows passage and circulation and also the exchange of matter and ideas between the two “places”. The durability of these depends on what walks on it, and in this context the fragility does not question the functionality, even can intensify it. I genuinely think being an artist is being a bridge.
At the core of my work is the search for limbo between reality and fiction. The arenas that are between seriousness and “play”. Painting is the most real component in my work, it presents itself as the skeleton of a changeable and semi-invisible body (sculpture). It is the pre of the pos.
Having the resources to do so, BETAR had a great initiative in creating space to show and disseminate artists’ work. I feel privileged to have been invited to the first edition and I hope you will continue with the José Mendonça award in the future. The residency shows that there are external entities concerned with providing opportunities for artists to really focus on work.

Maria Rebela
Art is closely linked to life and living. It is a product/ result of our experiences and everything that composes us and therefore it is also a tool capable of translating this set of experiences into something material and helping to see other perspectives of what is, for us and for others, life and what we take from it.
Initiatives such as this allow continuity and promote the production and development of the body of work of artists, which makes them essential to stimulate artistic creation in Portugal.
It is essential, to be able to persist and develop an artistic career, to have a lot of willpower and perseverance, because it is a process that can be quite time consuming and exhausting. Despite all this, these days, social networks have become a good tool to help increase visibility and have access to some opportunities.

Laura Caetano
For me the artist is a kind of blind messenger, someone who carries a message in a dead language and then creates a code to try to decipher it, but this code is impossible to verify and the artist presents only its translation, which is possible for him to do. For art to work, the one who receives the message must believe it.
I am very interested in the painters of the end of the Gothic and the beginning of the Renaissance. I also like to read poetry. But for breeding everything can be useful, listening to a conversation between strangers on the subway, or watching the flight of a bird. Curiosity is very important.
[As for the initiative] it is important that people from other areas are interested, involve and support artistic production in Portugal. Art should not only be for artists, but there should also be an audience.
[In Portugal] the difficulty lies in living from work as an artist. But I think there is an interesting and energetic community of young artists in Portugal linked to painting, who have a unique identity and a great will and generosity.

Pedro Tinoco
I do not know what it is to be an artist. What differs me from an (a) electrician? If we all have the artistic ability to look at the world differently, what distinguishes us is intention, geopolitical context and a certain number of influences capable of dictating our place in the world.
I would say that the most present element [in my work] is the constant change of the image and, therefore, the interest in the do/delete dichotomy. I try to paint, and that the result is an image, or something else, if you are facing it.
Painting is always the result of my physical and psychological place, of concrete and immaterial things – so if I follow another path, painting comes behind (??) or comes ahead, and then I look for ways to solve the image. I don’t know. It’s something between the riddle – or hit or miss or none of this.
I think the way is to invest in those who do not have opportunities to continue. In this way, privileging younger artists is to continue working so that the next generations have more structure and capacity in our context.

Susana Amaral
Art gives meaning to our existence and is something that influences all areas of my life, where I live, friends etc. Being an artist goes far beyond a profession, it is a political act.
Work gives me answers and not the opposite, I have the privilege to guide me on a journey that can last a lifetime.
Unfortunately, we have other constraints beyond our passion or plastic decisions that shape our practice: the country’s economic situation, appreciation of culture, climate crisis, elitist, gender and racial prejudices that, in a dramatic way, influence and condition our artistic production.

Maria Inês Alves
It brings to my attention what is happening around me, people, phrases, landscapes, texts that I read or pieces of other artists. Sometimes it’s small details, textures, shapes, colors.
I work by series and each series has its “glue”. The last one I did in college was marked by my grandmother, who taught me how to handle a sewing machine (with which I drew). I tried, in the drawing, to replicate the main aspects of this learning process, the repetition, the trial/error, the subtlety of the gesture, the small discrepancies in an almost homogeneous pattern.
Support and investment in the purchase of works are crucial at an early stage of their career. The possibility of exposure and participation in the residence are very relevant opportunities, which promote local cultural development and encourage individual production, feeding future exhibitions and work cycles.
[Promoting work] is very challenging for most young people in their early careers. However, there is undoubtedly a need for greater investment in scholarships and creation support, a review of the work environment in the structures of the various cultural institutions, and to foster curiosity for national artistic production.

This interview is an integral part of Revista Artes & Letras #155, August 2023
Partially automatic translation from portuguese: some expressions may differ from their actual meaning.