ARCO Lisboa 2026

Contemporary life is marked by an abundance of stimuli that overwhelm us in its quantity and intensity. Speed, noise, information overload, visual pollution: an intensity that has taken over our lives without us realising it and that often causes the small details of everyday life to be forgotten. This is a sentiment that Claire de Santa Coloma, João Ferro Martins, Tiago Baptista and Tito Mouraz  seek to preserve through their works, highlighting the objects, images and places that are part of our routine.

Together, the four artists encourage us to view our daily lives from new perspectives, appreciating the natural elements, everyday objects, moments of silence and the landscapes around us.

Tiago Baptista’s (Leiria, 1986) paintings and sculptures capture brief narrative moments that stem from the artist’s memories and blend and transform into fantastical images with phenomenological references. These images often speak of the intimate forms that inhabit nature – stones, shells, mushrooms – that remind Baptista of a place called home.

João Ferro Martins’ (Santarém, 1979) gaze falls on the manufactured. Working with various mediums, the artist appropriates everyday objects or images, sometimes personal, and gives them new meanings, translating ideas and memories into the material and concrete. Ferro Martins fights against the disregard for everyday life by making the familiar strange and forcing the observer to truly look at the object.

Tito Mouraz’s (Porto, 1977) work explores specific geographies through photography, focusing on the landscape and how it is altered by human presence. These territories may be delimited by physical borders, but in more recent series the artist has also investigated what he calls emotional geographies. His latest works focus on the insignificances, chance events and coincidences of everyday life. They are brief glimpses into Mouraz’s daily life, acting as a window into his state of mind and portraying details of the urban and rural landscape.

Claire de Santa Coloma’s (Buenos Aires, 1983) works, meanwhile, remind us of our connection with nature through their materiality and organic forms. The wooden sculptures and cut-paper drawings set their own pace, demanding a prolonged, almost meditative contemplation. They are an invitation to slow down and to be fully present and mindful in the moment of observation.