Words: Cláudia Pinto
Art and fashion merge in a symbiosis of perfect harmony, like two bodies in urgent dialogue. In this edition of Choices with Soul, we set out to discover the love of art that lives quietly all around us. Four individuals who find their purpose in art, even when it is not always their livelihood.
Irina Chitas
Um whiskey com duas pedras, por favor.
Her biography says that as a child she wanted to be a trapeze artist, but instead chose the second most daring option, graduating in Communication Sciences at ISCSP. She spent eight years as a journalist at Vogue Portugal, where she also served as lifestyle editor. Today she can be found in the communications office of the ModaLisboa Association, working as a copywriter and content manager.
Um whiskey com duas pedras, por favor. is Irina Chitas’ first book. Writing about the book, Patrícia Domingues notes that “in her first literary attempts, she explores states of mind, describes the absurdities of everyday life and human anxieties, through a cosmopolitan, existential and chaotic lens (a defining trait of both her personality and her writing). Using the use of inner monologue and the exposure of universal and micro-thematic concerns, Irina Chitas gives words to reflections that are as soothing as they are resilient, like April carnation”.
“She approaches writing as the pulse of her creative practice and as a translation of sociopolitical upheavals, while continuing to collaborate with national fashion and culture publications, alongside multiple platforms, from museums and video to events and life itself”.
Edgar Morais
It Lasts forever
It Lasts Forever is the title of Edgar Morais’s exhibition. An actor, director and photographer, Morais marked the first public presentation of his photographic work with this project, bringing together a selection of moments, portraits and landscapes captured between 2012 and 2023.
The exhibition opened in March 2024 at the cultural collective Casa do Comum, in Lisbon, before travelling on to FEST. The aim is to continue its journey through galleries in different parts of the world.
This is another way for the actor to engage with the world. In his own words, “there is no right or wrong, because art ends up being subjective, and that is its magic, not only in terms of who receives it or how it is perceived, but also in terms of time. Art plays with a temporal dimension that is deeply interesting. Even when I watch films, look at a painting or listen to music I have known since I was a child, my interpretation and what I feel about each film or piece of music changes with me and with the passage of time”.
It Lasts Forever reflects on intimacy, memory and the traces we leave behind, both in private and in public spaces.
Teresa Vila Mendes
Love for the Canvas
A blank canvas, brushes, colours and a universe of possibilities left to the subconscious. This, for Teresa, founder of Frambooesas, is synonymous with happiness.
Her love of painting began early, influenced by her grandfather, Vítor Mendes, a painter of sacred art. As a child, she was already applying oil, powdered gold and every borrowed brush she could find to the canvas, watching something new come into being. Her grandfather’s death at a young age led to a forced pause in painting. Creativity, however, could not be confined. Teresa’s patterns and creative instincts found expression in the bikini designs she created for the Frambooesas brand, a form of creativity adapted to life’s challenges.
Painting, though, was never a completely closed door. Now, after what can be described as “a reconciliation with life”, Teresa has returned to the canvas, exploring her creativity in the way she knows best. A safe space, where the only limits are only those of the mind.
Gus Romano
Models and Paintings
We first came to know him as a booker at the Central Models modelling agency, where he stood out for his ability to recognise talent and manage careers with a sensitive, attentive eye. It is from this context that Gustavo Romano speaks to us, revealing his experience in the fashion world and the close relationships he has built with the models and artists he represents.
Yet behind the blank canvas and the brushes, Gus Romano reveals another side of himself, one that is creative and deeply personal. His works are not mere paintings; they are “pieces of himself”, fragments of emotions, memories and experiences transformed into colour and form. Each stroke and every detail reflects part of his story: a silent invitation for the viewer to enter his intimate universe.
It is in this balance between the world of fashion and artistic creation that Gustavo builds his identity: an attentive gaze turned outward, while exploring his inner world through painting, proving that art is, for him, an extension of life itself.
