Portugal artist turns trash into sculptures
I want to show the ravages of our society on nature, Bordalo says
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Broken crates and worn pipes pile up in the studio of Portuguese artist Bordalo II, who uses rubbish to create surprising animal sculptures to warn about the dangers of pollution.
The bearded 31-year-old has decorated the Portuguese capital and other cities around the world with his colourful foxes, owls, monkeys and chameleons.
In Lisbon, one of his bestknown works is a four-metre high raccoon assembled from old tyres, car bumpers and electronic components that gazes down on pedestrians in the riverside Belem district.
“Animals are the characters which the public can identify most easily with when I want to show the ravages of our society on nature,” said Artur Bordalo, who prefers the artistic name Bordalo II, a tribute to his late grandfather, painter Artur Real Bordalo.
He uses materials in his work that are harmful to animals to raise awareness, he said, in an interview at his Lisbon studio, as he handdrilled a paw out of plastic cut from a rubbish bin lid for a rodent sculpture.
Bordalo II collects the trash he uses to make his sculptures from Lisbon’s rubbish dumps and kerbsides. When he is not travelling abroad, he works on his sculptures in his studio on the ground floor of a building in a working class northern Lisbon neighbourhood while listening to electronic music.
Lisbon to Las Vegas
Born in Lisbon in 1987, he took his first steps as an artist in the studio of his grandfather, a painter known for his watercolours of Lisbon who died last year. Bordalo II went on to study art at the University of Lisbon but he decided to focus on his passion — graffiti.
He said he got the idea to make sculptures from trash while doing graffiti. “One day I started to assemble objects I had put aside to create a stand to paint on and then I realised I could use these objects to create something aesthetically interesting, while giving them meaning,” he said. Bordalo II’s works have decorated streets in Berlin, Paris, Las Vegas and Baku in Azerbaijan. The message he wishes to convey though is always the same.