For the last 20 years or so there has been a bad seed growing in the Portuguese city of Lisbon. They call him Pedro Matos. Growing up he was heavily influenced by skateboarding and graffiti which was running rampant in Portugal during the early 2000's. Please don't let the graffiti monicur confuse you. Over the years Pedro Matos has developed one of the cleanest and most well refined illustration styles I have seen in quite a time. His fusion of masterful illustration and streety grime seems to breath new life into this often overused process. This undeniable photo realistic skill Pedro possesses is quickly getting him the notoriety he deserves. Keep your eye on this guy, he is just getting started at the ripe age of 20 years old. -Manuel Bello

I was born in Santarém, Portugal and moved to Lisbon one year later. I grew up in a middle-class suburbs on the south side of Lisbon. I remember feeling like a bit of an outsider as a kid. I started getting involved in graffiti and skateboarding and hanging around in the street with my friends and creating all sorts of different things. I have also been very lucky and had many opportunities to travel beginning at a very young age.

I currently live near the Beach in the south side of Lisbon (Caparica) but I have my studio in the centre of Lisbon where I spend most of my time.

I usually don't do any plans or preparatory sketches. I just start painting a few layers on my canvas as the backgrounds and after a lot of work and experimentation, I decide which subject to portrait, and how I am going to place them in terms of scale and composition etc. I end up changing a lot of things during my painting process. It's like solving some kind of problem where I add and subtract until it doesn't seem to clash with my vision.

I use photo references for the portraits. I change and combine a lot and I am not 100% committed to my sources, as that's not the point most of the times. But for me and my work a reference it's needed to have the right light source and proportions generally.

Yes. However, this seems to be a subject that confuses a lot of people. I am not one of the artists that started working in the streets and then got to the gallery circuit after gaining a lot of attention. With me, both things happened at the same time and go hand to hand. One thing complements the other and wouldn't make much sense one without the other. Of course there are times that it's more appropriate to work in the studios and for gallery shows, and other times to do street art. In the past few months I have been working a lot on my studio both for my solo show and various group shows. But now that summer time has come I will be taking some time to work on all the street art projects that I have left pending.

Everything feels like a big blessing and I am really flattered by everything. I have been working hard for the past few years and it's definitely the best feeling in the world to see the results coming together and that every minute of struggle and hard work has been worth it. I get very excited and honored just thinking about all the projects and shows I have been offered!

Yes, thanks to all the people that support me and my work I have been blessed and able to make a living out of it and it's nice to be able to fully concentrate on my work.

Thank you! Well, I started showing being completely self-taught as I was still in High-School and had no formal art training prior. However, I am now attending classes in Lisbon and working towards my BFA.

The primary subject matter in my work is humanity. I paint about people and the decaying condition of society as a whole. The consequence of the contemporary society and it's decay.

There are a lot of influences and people whom I respect and admire. It would be impossible to name them all but the most influential are masters like Caravaggio, Velazquez, Rembrandt, Chardin etc. I also admire a lot of the Pop Art and Hiper-realism artists and of course, contemporary artists. We live in a time with a lot of talented artists, and I specially admire Antony Micallef, Conor Harrington, Barry Mcgee, Kinsey, Charlie Isoe, Faile, Shawn Barber, Swoon, etc... MICALLEF, CONNOR, McGEE, KINSEY, CHARLIE ISOE, FAILE, and BARBER.

The most important thing is being healthy and around the people that I love.

Loosing people.

Thanks for the support.

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