Martinho Dias was born in 1968 in Sto. Tirso. He currently lives in Trofa, where he has a studio.
He has a master's degree in Fine Arts – Painting, from the Faculty of Fine Arts of Porto.
It is not possible to remain indifferent to Martinho Dias' painting. He captures your gaze, if nothing else because of the unusual break of formal environments he offers us. The dissonant element [...] introduces a caricatural and political dimension that arouses an interpretive gaze. And those who see must reflect, even if art, as Freud intended, may be incomprehensible and enigmatic. Martinho Dias asks us for the effort of reason to give in to the delight of the eye.
And it is not difficult. Through the tension that the faces convey, through the vigorous and markedly gestural smudge, through the light and the contrast of colours and through the irony, certainly, sometimes caricatural and satirical.
To remain indifferent to Martinho Dias' painting is to remain in disquiet and ambiguity. And we men, using the scalpel of explanatory reason, tend towards what is comfortable and right. The question is whether we get there.
António Tavares (Writer)
S’thule Sikhangele - Written Painting by Dumisani ‘Ramadu’ Moyo
95 x 405,5 cm
Acrylic on canvas
2005
S’thule Sikhangele Pintura Escrita by RAMADU
I have imagined the suffering people of my country in a Train held as hostage by the government which I call it (The train of Freedom “in the song”). These people have been travelling to the promised land by this train since the country went into political, economical and social crisis. The journey to Freedom, Humanity, Democracy is full obstacles, torture and corruption. Through the windows I can see women, children and men, their sad faces looking outside to the beautiful African landscape. Not only sad faces I see, but some have hope because the destination is free of corruption, torture, poverty, hunger and lawlessness, it is the promised land…..! Guidelines; I would like to see sad and hopeful faces of people looking outside through the closed and opened windows of the train. A beautiful African landscape. I suggest that you search the "images" on internet of "Zimbabwe Landscape", there you will see what is interesting for you, I’m not that hard in choosing the landscape. If you can’t find anything good on Zimbabwe then you should try to search the images of "African Landscape" then you’ll have a lot to choose. It just have to be an African landscape which fits to the painting you’ll make, just as flexible as that. The main colour of train should be brown and yellow as the second one, written in yellow “National Train of Freedom”.
Dumisani “RAMADU” Moyo
Zimbabwe/Austria, July 2003