A Conversation Worth Remembering
Every Portrait Begins with a Stranger and Ends with Someone Impossible to Forget
One Conversation at a Time
I am not looking for celebrities.
I am not looking for extraordinary stories.
I am looking for people.
This project began with a simple question.
How many lives pass by us every day without us ever taking the time to truly know them?
For years, I painted public figures. I learned something from every portrait. But over time I realised that a painting carries a different kind of meaning when you know the person behind the face.
Today, I walk without knowing who I will meet.
It might be a police officer finishing a shift. A pharmacist who has spent forty years serving the same community. A shoemaker. A florist. Or someone who simply crosses my path for a few seconds.
Every encounter begins the same way.
“Excuse me… I’m sorry to bother you.”
If they accept, we talk.
Only then does the painting begin.
Not to celebrate fame, but to preserve what we all share: a story, a dream, a profession, a loss, a hope, or simply a unique way of seeing the world.
Because I believe we don’t have to be famous to deserve to be remembered.
The Conversation Before the Painting
Every portrait begins with a conversation.
When I start painting, I am no longer looking only at a photograph. I am remembering words, silences, gestures and expressions that belonged to that single encounter.
Sometimes the painting reflects a lifetime of work.
Sometimes it reflects a dream that has yet to come true.
Some portraits become a tribute to a profession. Others are simply about the person.
Each painting finds its own meaning through the conversation.
Never before it.
How many lives pass by us every day without us ever taking the time to truly know them?
For years, I painted public figures. I learned something from every portrait. But over time I realised that a painting carries a different kind of meaning when you know the person behind the face.
Today, I walk without knowing who I will meet.
It might be a police officer finishing a shift. A pharmacist who has spent forty years serving the same community. A shoemaker. A florist. Or someone who simply crosses my path for a few seconds.
Every encounter begins the same way.
“Excuse me… I’m sorry to bother you.”
If they accept, we talk.
Only then does the painting begin.
Not to celebrate fame, but to preserve what we all share: a story, a dream, a profession, a loss, a hope, or simply a unique way of seeing the world.
Because I believe we don’t have to be famous to deserve to be remembered.
Why I Continue to Paint in Oil
We live in a world where everything happens quickly.
A photograph takes a fraction of a second.
A painting asks us to slow down.
That is exactly what I want to preserve.
Each portrait is painted slowly, in oil on linen. As I paint, I return to that conversation. Every brushstroke becomes an act of contemplation, remembrance and respect.
More than capturing a likeness, I hope to transform a brief encounter into something that may outlive us both.
A Project Without an Ending
This project began on the streets I walk every day.
But it was never about Lisbon.
I hope it will eventually lead me to remote villages across Portugal, to different cultures, and to people I could never have imagined meeting.
There is no final number of portraits.
There is no finish line.
As long as there are people whose stories remain untold, this project will continue.
Over the years, the portraits may naturally organise themselves. By profession. By place. By generation. By shared experiences. Or perhaps simply by the stories that brought them together.
I don’t know yet.
And I like that.
Returning
When the painting is finished, I try to find the person again.
I bring them a fine art print of their portrait, and we meet once more.
The original painting remains with me.
One day, I hope these portraits will share the same space. Not as a collection of paintings, but as a collective portrait of our time.
I want visitors to leave feeling as though they have met these people personally.
To feel moved.
To recognise, within strangers, the same hopes, fears and quiet struggles that connect us all.
One Final Question
There is one question I try to save until the very end of every conversation.
How would you like to be remembered?
It is rarely easy to answer.
Perhaps because very few people are ever asked that question.
But I like to think that, for a brief moment, the conversation continues long after we have said goodbye.
Maybe that is what this project is really about.
A reminder that every person we pass carries an entire lifetime we may never fully know.
Every portrait begins with a stranger. Every conversation becomes a memory. Every memory deserves to be preserved.