About Me

My Name is Tiago Coelho (TIAGOO), born in 1977 in Lisbon (Portugal).

I’ve moved to the Netherlands in 2001 and have been calling it home since.

My daughter was born here in Rotterdam.

My art is born out of two rather different life experiences – infancy, childhood, teenagerhood and early adult life in Odivelas, Portugal and the second chapter of adult life in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

The beginning

Waxed paper that my Granny used to wrap pastry and savory in, would become the very first canvas for me to draw in the early accounts of life and these revolved around football, superhero/ cartoons and city life (specifically the neighboring businesses / local organisms such as the gas company, firemen, sports center, the rare amateur bull fighting event and a privileged backside window to the hill that separated Odivelas from Lisbon. My older brother Hugo was the inspiration, his drawings so stylized and characters so diverse.

Comics, tv cartoons, caricatures, film, music video clips, Heavy Metal music and very specific cover art, computer games, football and major events in life were my biggest thematic sources.

I remember watching on the TV the “mysterious cities of Gold”, Asterix, Batman the movie, Antonio’s caricatures, ZX spectrum and commodore amiga games such as Batman, Robocop, TV Sports Basketball, to go to the Jose Alvalade Stadium to watch Sporting CP play live, to witness family wedding ceremonies and feeling the urge to sketch either copies of the characters or my own interpretation of these.