Originally from Porto, Braga has established a multidisciplinary artistic practice since his early stages of pre-academia. It all arises out of a curiosity to understand himself in relation to the world, by applying certain mediums of artistic expression that cross over and complement each other. With a greater focus on architecture, one can also find other projects here other projects in the fields of visual arts, tattoo, and music, that function as moons orbiting this main practice, thereby affecting its tides.

        CV

        Currently based in Copenhagen, Francisco is at Contra Tattoo Studio working as a resident artist, further developing his technique and creative methodologies that serve this art form. Simultaneously, he works once a month in the National Museum of Norway, in Oslo, as a drawing teacher for the exhibition, a pilot project he inaugurated in early 2023 and has been showing noticeably positive results for both the class participants and himself as an artist.

        In the summer of 2024, he finished his Masters in Architecture with his project “Light Shadows of Serenity”. An art-based research project aiming at capturing the phenomenological effect of psychiatric architecture on the treatment of the mind. That led him to build a camera in the shape of a room, thereby acquiring the so-called “matter & psyche-driven” qualities of that space, in order to give architecture the autonomy to express its inner relationships with external reality by means of employing the camera obscura light propagation phenomena. His work was highly esteemed by FAUP's appointed jury team, earning him the top grade.

        At the same time as his academic thesis production and his once-a-month drawing classes, he had a full-time apprenticeship at ALL architect studio, in Copenhagen. Here he worked for one and a half years on a multitude of projects, both for international competitions and those under construction, allowing him to experiment with tasks from all stages of architectural creation. A close contact with both of the firm’s partners also made his knowledge apprehension more immediate, deepening his propensity to certain aspects of this practice through a responsible sense of autonomy - like with art direction, 3D modeling and image rendering.

        Before this move to Denmark, Braga worked in Norway as a member of the Oslo Architecture Triennale, helping the team of the 2022 edition bring the renowned and internationally appraised exhibition come to life. This opportunity came to show itself through his previous working context - a vegan restaurant in Oslo placed inside the same building as DogA (the Norwegian Design and Architecture Organization). His move to Scandinavia was facilitated by the Erasmus program, through which he was able to study at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design as an exchange student from Porto School of Architecture, despite his intentions to do so since his early teenage years of fascination towards the Nordic ways of life.

        During the greatest part of his life Portugal was his home. Born and raised on the western-most edge of the Iberian Peninsula strengthened his relationship with the Ocean, which can be found to be his main muse throughout his artistic production. While studying to be an architect, Francisco came to develop his skills in painting, drawing, design and tattooing in a small studio of his own in downtown Porto. This happened in parallel with two of his musical projects - Névoa (bass and guitar live performance) & Benthik Zone (co-founder).

        Benthik Zone is a multidisciplinary musical project created with Artur Leão, a longtime friend and fellow artist. Over the years the critics struggled fitting it in any sort of conventional sub-genre of the Black Metal landscape, leading them to define it as Underwater Black Metal. This well deserved title comes from the project’s direct inspiration and respect to water’s elemental properties, serving also as a metaphor for the almost “deep-diving” like act of self-knowledge. With 7 releases that explore a consequent narrative, Artur and Braga have explored lyrical topics of Greek mythology, quantum physics, alien life-forms, eco-environmentalism and marine biology; through sound aesthetics of atmospheric / space black metal, electronics and tribal genres of music.

        Francisco draws since he was two years old because his muscle coordination wouldn’t allow him to start before that. Hence, all of his projects are sure to have at least one sketch illustrating a part of the creative process. He sees drawing as a universal language that, similarly to the words of Otto Rank, preceded the advent of writing and spoken-word, and that everyone is sure to find within themselves one or another way of doing it.


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