Bordalo II

Biography

The artistic name Bordalo II that Artur Bordalo uses is a tribute to his grandfather, also a painter in whose studio he spent many hours as a child. Although he never completed his studies at the Faculty of Final Arts in Lisbon, Bordalo says those years allowed him to discover sculpture and ceramics and experiment with a variety of materials. His stage for exploration of colour and scale is the public space. He needs it to deliver his powerful message – excessive production and consumption result in incessant production of garbage and destruction of the planet. And the garbage becomes his creative material and the vehicle of his universal manifesto.

You will see a giant owl split in half on the façade of the College of Arts at the University of Coimbra – just one work of the “Big Trash Animals – Neutral” series, which Bordalo uses to attract attention to the climate change problem and the sustainability goal. 

Bordalo`s artwork shows the destruction and beauty in nature itself. He says: “I think that art is a very powerful tool to achieve this.” His work has been exhibited all over the world in New York, Tel Aviv, Paris, Barcelona, and Berlin just to name a few cities”.

The Big Trash Animals series is an intrusive reminder that waste production is a problem that threatens the planet, producing images out of the very materials responsible for their destruction. Damaged bumpers, burnt garbage cans, tires and appliances can be distinguished at a closer look, challenging people’s ecological and social awareness. His gigantic Medusa, exhibited in Brussels, is 80% made out of waste found in rivers and on beaches to highlight the plastic clogging of oceans and seas.

You will see a giant owl split in half on the façade of the College of Arts at the University of Coimbra – just one work of the “Big Trash Animals – Neutral” series, which Bordalo uses to attract attention to the climate change problem and the sustainability goal. 

Bordalo`s artwork shows the destruction and beauty in nature itself. He says: “I think that art is a very powerful tool to achieve this.” His work has been exhibited all over the world in New York, Tel Aviv, Paris, Barcelona, and Berlin just to name a few cities”.

The Big Trash Animals series is an intrusive reminder that waste production is a problem that threatens the planet, producing images out of the very materials responsible for their destruction. Damaged bumpers, burnt garbage cans, tires and appliances can be distinguished at a closer look, challenging people’s ecological and social awareness. His gigantic Medusa, exhibited in Brussels, is 80% made out of waste found in rivers and on beaches to highlight the plastic clogging of oceans and seas.