Urban Art Lisbon

As expected, when I was in Lisbon recently I discovered plenty of good quality street art. There are quite a few renowned Portuguese street artists and combined with the many visiting Brazilians, I was spoiled for choice.

One of my favourite Lisbon artists is Bordallo II, he creates 3D images from garbage he collects, I have seen his work around the world but it was good to see it in his home town.

I only managed to find a small portion of the art available, there were still the touristy bits and partying to do (see my earlier post), I will have to return at a later date to see some more.

I enjoyed visiting the LX factory in Alcântara, in the west of the city, just like SWG3 in Glasgow and the Custard Factory in Birmingham, this old industrial area has been filled with “Creatives” in the fields of fashion, advertising, communication, multimedia, art, architecture, music, etc.

Back on the streets, there was plenty to choose from, I especially like the work of another 3D Lisbon-based artist, Vhils who has developed a relief portrait style where he penetrates through countless layers of posters, dirt, and rendering to expose the different layers of a building to create wonderful, evocative images, I discovered that his work in Lisbon is hard to find, I only managed to find his most recent, a collaboration with American artist Shepard Fairey, they created an image of a girl with each displaying their respective skills.

Almost every city I have visited recently has had a street art festival in the suburbs, Lisbon is no different. Marvila, an out-of-the-way neighbourhood to the east of the city, it’s off the beaten track, but it hosts one of the greatest collections of murals in the city, there was one by another of my favourites, Brazillian artist Kobra.