Rita Paupério
- Anna Lilli Garai
- May 27
- 4 min read
Rita Paupério’s paintings feel like quiet thoughts taking shape. She works with layers—diluted paint, charcoal, pastel—letting each material guide the next move. Her process is slow and reflective, shaped by pauses and shifts in rhythm. Nothing is rushed or overly planned. The first gestures are loose, open, and from there the work unfolds, one decision at a time. Her pieces drift, return, and settle into something that feels honest. Like memories or moods, they carry traces of what can’t always be said. She offers a space to think through color, texture, and silence, letting the work speak in its own language.
Q: What first pulled you back into the studio in 2023?
A: It had long been a desire that ran parallel to my professional activity as a graphic designer, but it had been postponed and put aside due to lack of time, space, and commitment. Drawing, illustration, and photography were always present, but painting was not. The project I was part of came to an end, and after a few frustrating attempts to stay on the same path—while the studio work was already underway—I allowed myself the opportunity to believe in and explore a new direction, in which I’ve been finding myself.
Q: How do you know when a shape or gesture is saying enough?
A: I think my experience as a designer has given me a comfortably intuitive approach to composition. Usually, the realization is immediate, but I let time and a fresh look offer me a new perspective from which to evaluate. Sometimes the energy shifts—what was flowing suddenly stops—and it feels like the conversation has died, leaving only an uncomfortable silence. I think I’m looking for a shared silence, the harmony that comes from the absence of words.
Q: You use a mix of acrylic, oil bar, charcoal, and pastel. What keeps that combination interesting to you?
A: In the creative process, I choose materials that allow me to achieve the desired effect. As a rule, I try to create layers through texture, transparency, and residue.
Color is one of the guiding threads. Paint speaks one language, charcoal another. Each material has its own expression, and it’s the combination—the choices I make in each work—that ultimately tells the story I want.
I see the phrases constructed through my artistic vocabulary as poetry, so they carry subjectivity.
I don’t want defined, exact, or closed forms, but an open-ended conversation that raises questions, inspires next steps, and allows for multiple interpretations.
Q: When you talk about "mental landscapes," what kind of space are you imagining?
A: These non-figurative landscapes function as emotional records. Each painting begins with an exploratory base, in which the initial layers serve as foundations for later interventions. In this process, I identify colorful shapes and trace subtle paths that create connections and rhythms. I end up outlining maps that reflect states of consciousness and fragments of memory.
These landscapes are not descriptive, but are structured as open visual systems that seek to translate what is felt yet difficult to verbalize. The absence of a linear narrative and the attention to formal detail create space for multiple readings.
Q: Do you think abstraction makes it easier or harder to talk about introspective states?
A: I suppose it’s not the same for all artists. My training and background are mostly figurative, but as someone with an extremely conscious rational structure, the path of abstraction has become fundamental—almost unquestionable—at least in relation to my research as an author.
The introspective experience is subjective and full of nuance, and I usually take this conscious reflection to its limit. My analysis of everything around me is almost exhausting. Stepping outside myself to see from different perspectives makes everything too concrete, clear, conscious—and boring. Only abstraction and the creative process that comes with it allow me the openness needed to reflect on the complexity of human existence in a poetic way. I think it becomes a counterpoint to my objectivity.
Q: What kind of shift happens for you between the first painted layer and what comes next?
A: The first layers are thought out in advance and aligned in a certain way, but they are extremely raw and spontaneous. I don’t see my work as locked into a fixed form, because I like to experiment with different materials and tools, and it’s essential for me to understand the processes from beginning to end.The choice of medium and material is never random, and there’s a phase of experimentation before I understand how they behave.
At the moment, in the early stages, I’ve been working with very diluted paint on raw cotton canvas, and I want there to be room for uncertainty—for something I don’t fully control. I have to allow this space for surprise so that I’m forced to react spontaneously, instead of having everything calculated.
It’s this internal tension that allows me to grow and find answers—or at least raise new questions. The subsequent layers define form, depth, and coherence without self-criticism, without right or wrong. I think there is always an attempt to be at peace with who I am and the history I carry.
