Bartolomeu dos Santos works directly with tiles, in an inventive way that takes advantage of the techniques brought from the engraving, creating unique panels using scrapes and spray paints to draw in a broad gesture or apply colour stains. (…) In addition to the differences in scale between the engraving and the decorative panels, however, there is a greater spontaneity of the drawing, translating, in a work between acids and fire, a period of great creative energy by the artist.

Alexandre Pomar

In Jornal Expresso, December 2001

The artwork “Homenagem a Fernão Mendes Pinto” [Fernão Mendes Pinto Homage] was produced in 1998 and presented, in the same year, for the first time in the exhibition Torna Viagem at Galeria Ratton (Lisbon).

This work has an incredibly special meaning because it refers to the theme that the artist narrated in the great artistic intervention of public art (2.80 metres height x 24.50 metres length) for the Pragal railway station (Portugal), the land where Fernão Mendes Pinto was born (1509 – 1583), and where, after his returned from the East, wrote the book Peregrinação [Pilgrimage].

Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Ratton