Duarte B. Freitas
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Nov 11
- 3 min read
Duarte B. Freitas is an artist from Lisbon who works with painting, collage, and digital media. His work often starts with observation and develops through layering, erasing, and rebuilding. Acrylic, oil pastel, and photography unite in his pieces, creating surfaces that combine precision and spontaneity. Freitas is intrigued by how memory and emotion influence our perception and how an image can move between fact and feeling. His paintings mix control and chance, letting abstraction and figuration engage in a dialogue.
Q: You move between painting, collage, and digital work. What makes a medium feel “alive” to you?
A: One of the reasons I keep blending painting with digital work is because I enjoy the contrast between mediums. Acrylics and oil pastels, for instance, may have more intensity than pigmented inks from the printing studio, but the contrast goes a step further and is almost a language of its own. Occasionally I use collage for the same reason. So, I don’t look only for intensity with specific mediums, I look for contrasts between them.
Q: You often talk about memory and how we store images. Do you ever paint from something you’ve already forgotten?
A: Not intentionally. I like to think that we store images together with the emotions that come with it, some sort of energy. When we recall an image, we can recall that same energy. These processes could be very similar, but not necessarily the same. My recent work exists within the transition from absolute detail, like a photograph, and an abstract reality, closer to an emotion or energy, with abstract shapes and intense colors, which work like a simplified coded emotional language.
The same language we could be using to help store what we saw a few days ago, or it could also be just what we need to replace part of a memory that was lost.
Imagination also plays a role, and we can create something from imagination only. In any case, in the end, memories must also be part of who we are, and when we create anything, even if it is from chance or pure imagination, we carry those memories.
Q: Your process seems to balance control and chance. Which one usually wins?
A: In general, I start the work with a more balanced approach, then I make room for a sort of chaotic phase, where chance is included. Then, control comes back near the end. This process is valid for the complete work, from start to finish, with a similar, smaller-scale type of process occurring in many different instances throughout. Occasionally, I start with no structure or plan but enter the same process sooner or later. In the end, for some works control may be more visible, on others it can be the opposite.
Q: There’s a quiet tension in how you handle color and form. Do you ever chase harmony, or is contrast the goal?
A: Contrast is a goal, and interesting things can happen when we confront opposites or things of different nature. But the overall image needs to have a certain consistent harmony. Throughout the creative process, I always evaluate carefully how I see and feel the whole piece and, when it is the case, if it remains within the original framework or idea.
Q: You’ve called yourself an experimentalist. What keeps you from repeating yourself?
A: Experimentation allows for discovery, innovation and enjoyment, and that is what I tend to look for unintentionally.
But it tends to leave behind perfecting and mastering certain techniques. To realise the full potential of something new we need time, and one way we can deal with the flow of new ideas and curiosity is writing them down, to be investigated and maybe pursued later. So, although deep down an experimentalist, I do turn to repetition to allow for evolution within specific self-imposed restraints.
Q: You say inspiration comes from everyday life. What’s something small that recently shifted how you see things?
A: Some things are ordinary, in the sense that we see them every day and most of the time don’t look at them closely. Many may not shift the way we see things but can be a source of inspiration. I remember having started pure abstract works from observing more closely leaves on the ground, the texture of a stone wall and tree trunks or branches. I will keep this type of observation going and work with them. Sometime in the future I may address social or political issues, although I think it does not fit the purpose of art well, in most cases. At present, I make it my main source of inspiration to look at cities, and feel the energy in their inhabitants and visitors, architecture, monuments and streets.
