September 2009: Mr. Dheo in Portugal

Part-cartoonist and part realist, Portuguese artist Mr. Dheo's work covers more than just walls. You can find his work on bags, kicks, and even KidRobot toys. However, his first love is graffiti and he always returns to the streets. He writes:

"Mr. Dheo always related to art. When he was three years old, he began to copy sentences from newspapers and magazines and drawing on his own. He had no pencil or notebook, just pens and loose sheets of paper. From childhood to his teens, the compulsive need to express himself became a habit."

"Always rejecting any kind of connection to a school or art course, he developed without direct influences. As an autodidact, Mr. Dheo sees art in a very personal way, were there is no room for rules and limits."

"His first contact with graffiti was when he was 15 years old. Without knowing anyone connected to that area or that even shared the same interest, he began drawing sketches exploring innumerous ways of simply writing names. Months later he did his first street painting and started to meet other artists to whom he related and that motivated him to carry on."
"Today, after eight years of continuous work, Mr. Dheo is more focused on doing street walls and interior exterior decorations in all kinds of places and he also collaborates with brands for the personalizaton of various accessories. Versatile, he is the only street artist in Portugal at the moment who dedicates himself to photorealistic productions, which, together with the graphic component of his work, give him a very personal and particular style in constant development and improvement."
"Mr. Dheo also extends his work field to graphic design, mostly as an illustrator, in the creation of corporate identities and advertising images and even in these graphic works, you can always feel his urban influences."

Thanks, Dheo! For more photos, check out his website or MySpace. Awesome! Tonight, I'm off to prime walls for Saturday's Mural Slam. Found out that I'll have to be at work for most of it, but I'm hoping to get there for set-up and kick-off festivities.