Artur Bordalo (Lisboa, 1987) is today known as BORDALO II, the artistic name he chose as a tribute to his grandfather, promoting a continuity and reinvention of his artistic legacy. His youth was spent in the company of his grandfather, the painter Real Bordalo and his incessant passion for watercolors, and his adventures around illegal graffiti in Lisbon’s underworld.

He states that the eight years he spent at the Fine Arts Faculty of Lisbon allowed him to discover sculpture and the experimentation with various materials which distanced him from painting, the original art expression which lead him there in the first place. The public space would become the chosen canvas for his explorations on color and scale and the platform where he gradually transformed his habits and channeled his experiences in construction and development of his artistic work, currently focused on questioning the materialistic and greedy society which he (also) belongs to.

The excessive production of “things” or the exaggerated consumerism, which results in the constant production of “trash” and consequently in the destruction of our Planet, are the main themes of his artistic production. That “trash” becomes the singular and peculiar raw material which he uses in the construction of small or large scale pieces which he has spread throughout the world and which aim is, above all, to be a universal manifesto.

Big Trash Animals is a series of artworks that aims to draw attention to a current problem that is likely to be forgotten, become trivial or a necessary evil. The problem involves waste production, materials that are not reused, pollution and its effect on the planet. The idea is to depict nature itself, in this case animals, out of materials that are responsible for its destruction.

These works are built with end-of-life materials: the majority found in wastelands, abandoned factories or randomly and some are obtained from companies that are going through a recycling process. Damaged bumpers, burnt garbage cans, tires and appliances are just some of the objects that can be identified when you go into detail. They are camouflaging the result of our habits with little ecological and social awareness.

Description from Beyond Walls