Tiago Coelho
Tiago Coelho is a Figurative Oil Painting Artist with years of experience focusing on Magic Realism art.
He also works graphite/ pen drawing and/ or watercolors on paper and has developed so far hundreds of artworks across a myriad of themes and sensibilities.
Tiago is inspired daily by Rotterdam, the mundane, politics and other art forms such as literature, music and videogames.
He currently lives in Rotterdam, Netherlands and is available for commissions, freelance assignments and other artistic engagements.
Inspirations
Tiago draws inspiration from everyday family and work life, from the city where he lives (Rotterdam, Netherlands) , from the sociopolitical status quo and from the various different forms of art (visual arts, literature, music, videogames).
Preferred media
Tiago specializes in the use of oil paintings on larger scale works on canvas, as well as graphite/ charcoal, pen and watercolors on paper for the smaller scale ones.
Alternating between these is absolutely crucial for me to find aesthetical balance and I often experience the benefits of working in one method later when exploring the other, almost as if I cannot fully appreciate expressing through large paintbrush stroke painting on a bigger scale without the detail work of precise drawing with pen/ pencil on a smaller scale and vice-versa.
Concept
The concept revolves around carving pieces out of the canvas by devoting time to the artist’s senses in the process (doodling, feeling, playing, visiting and revisiting, trying, withdrawing images from one’s brain, subconscious and conscious).
The process of storytelling is shared by both the “miracle” of chance and the consistency of planning and repetition where the activity turns into an interactive piece, a game, a puzzle that can and should dynamically develop in one’s mind.
Drawings
Drawing has been the very foundation of how Tiago’s impulses and ideas translate into concrete abstract and figurative imagery.
The easily accessible small scale format (paper) with most common media (pencils, pens, paintbrushes, etc) allows quick and free flowing sketching
Paintings
Using oil painting on both small (50x70cm) and medium (100x180cm) scale cotton and linum canvases, the focus here becomes expression through the exploration of colors and shapes in long broad paintbrush strokes.
Doodling on canvas without any anticipation of end result initiates the process and further sittings allow the carving out of the imagery which land details to the ultimate narrative.
