Pedro Proença

Born in Lubango, Angola, in 1962, this artist began drawing at a very young age and was already dedicated to comic books by the age of 13. He studied at the National Society of Fine Arts in Lisbon, where he met his mentor, the painter João Vieira, who would greatly influence his artistic career.
He graduated in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon in 1986. While still a student, he started to make his mark on the university space with Pedro Portugal, founding the project for a magazine titled “Homeostética”, which would later form the basis for the Homeostético group. The collective initially included Manuel João Vieira, Pedro Portugal, Ivo, and Xana. They held their first group exhibition in 1983.
His first solo exhibition was in 1984, and he has since participated in important exhibitions both in Portugal and abroad.
In 1983, he won the Nadir Afonso Prize and received an Honorable Mention at the Cagnes-sur-Mer Festival. In 1985, he was awarded the Acquisition Prize at the V India Triennial, and in 1993, he received the Union Latina Prize for an installation at the headquarters of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. In 1996, he won the Eixo Atlântico Prize, and in 1997, he received the 1st Prize at the Salon de Otoño de Plasencia. His works can be found in public collections in Portugal and Spain, such as the Serralves Foundation in Porto, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, MEIAC in Badajoz, and the Reina Sofia Art Center in Madrid.
While he greatly dedicated himself to drawing as his preferred medium, as a versatile artist he has also explored various other forms of artistic expression, including painting, illustration, storytelling, essay writing, and even manifestos, having signed several of the manifestos of the Homeostético Movement. In recent years, he has also focused on installation art.