Ashtray with Cigarette Butts Drawing

My name is Mariana Duarte Santos and I'm a figurative artist from Lisbon, Portugal. I work in oil, pen and watercolor and printmaking. My work has always been more about the world and my observation of it than about myself and any of my inner feelings/turmoil. My artistic subjects are almost always related to people, I’m interested in capturing the way they interact/relate to the world, other people, themselves and their surroundings. I’m also very drawn to the relationships between the individual and the collective, as well as life’s illusions and constructs. My work typically has a very strong narrative quality to it as I’m often inspired by stories, history, literature and cinema. I try to use fragments and moments in time/space as a suggestion of something bigger, something more or something hidden. Sometimes my paintings can seem very introspective, both in their themes and overall fell, but they’re always based on observation, both of people and the word around them. I base a good deal of my work in still frames of films and documentaries as well as a huge stack of old photographs I pick up in flee markets/antique shops and pictures I take myself. All these elements are selected, modified and combined to create quiet moments of beauty, mystery, suspense, narratives and suggestions.