Vitor Reis

Vitor Reis was born in Angola in 1974 and moved to Portugal as a child, where he still lives and works.

Descended from a family of traditional potters from Caldas da Rainha, a city known for its ceramic tradition. Vitor attended the Art College and completed a Fine Arts degree, his artistic journey focused mainly on the sculpture discipline, but recently he discovered the potential of ceramics as a way of expression.

Coincidently or not, Vitor’s work captures a lot of the energy of that traditional ceramic that always overflows with ironic statements and criticism. Vitor Reis is now creating his ceramic work and research in a studio space sponsored by the Municipality of Caldas da Rainha, where he also develops a program of workshops with children, adults and other educational activities. He is exhibiting his ceramic work and taking part in events and interactive projects where the audience has a participatory engagement with the work, placing ceramics at the centre of people’s lives.

“My work is part of all that surrounds me. I like to create contradictions, proposing new relationships, do something that surprises me. I also like jokes: light, heavy, long or quick…

Ceramics gives me an infinite of possibilities: I can act as an artist, as a designer, or craftsman, without having to commit to any of them. I can be all that and continually experiment – that’s what I like to do.

In each piece, I always try to give space of interpretation. I don’t believe there is a linear truth in representation, but I do believe that objects can get different meanings and connotations depending on the time and social sphere where they live and act. The pieces are created on the basis of total freedom.”, explains Vitor Reis.