Marcos Milewski for exhibition "Islands 2021. Revival"

“Art is a form of communication, like yin and yang sometimes it tells a beautiful story, sometimes a horrible one. It’s similar to poetry.”

This is the idea of art of Marcos Milewski, a local artist whose graffiti are seen every day by locals and visitors all over Funchal.

We interviewed him while he was doing his last artwork at the local firefighters’ station, asking him to share some curiosities about his work.

Marcos Milewski during his interview and at the same time the process of creating a new mural

Marcos Milewski in his studio

Marcos likes to paint having a certain narrative in mind or using a lot of symbolism in his paintings.

For example, he decided to represent a broken window instead of a normal one, as he believes that adding some imperfections makes a painting more interesting and more relatable.

Marcos Milewski acrylic on canvas work created for Islands 2020.Isolation.

The Whale, a recurring theme of his paintings, was inspired by surrealist art and considered by him as a way to represent dreams and things out of common phycology.

Marcos Milewski "Urban call",acrylic on canvas. Created for Islands -2020. Isolation

An imaginative vision is behind the bicycle subject too, inspired from the idea of a girl going out in the island in her bicycle and painting what she sees, particularly in Fanal, a location which has inspired him to create a whole series of paintings.

Nature and incarnation, the mysterious forest of Fanal in Madeira has become the place for the creation of a whole collection of paintings

Marcos told us how he took inspiration from studying art history, particularly from surrealism, which is his favourite type of art for breaking the tradition and being related to the psychoanalysis of Freud.

He also said how visits to museums has inspired him a lot, like going at the Pompidou centre in Paris gave him the idea of creating sculptures with a 3d vision.

Marcos Milewski 3D sculpture, created for Islands 2021.Revival

He used to use oil painting, but he developed an allergy, so he found out that acrylic is way better, allowing a new technique with a flexible and lucid effect.

Sometimes he keeps some paintings for himself, not selling them.

For example, he used to paint his daughter when she was very young playing with all her games going out from the borders of the painting, he likes to keep these kinds of paintings at home for himself, to see her daughter growing.

Marcos paints every day, he likes that so much that quoting Confucius he said that he doesn’t feel that he is working but just exploring his favourite hobby further and further.

Marcos Milewski´s studio and works created for Islands 2020.Isolation.

By Maria Vieira and Steven Gheno, Curatorial assistant, Italy