DANIEL LEITE MENDES
BIO
Daniel Leite Mendes (Lisbon, 1977) is a Portuguese sculptor with an artistic background closely linked to the land, the essence and the origins of places. At the age of sixteen he began the art of working with his father on the wood element.
Later on, he continued his vocation by getting involved in architectural projects, models and creating spaces. Developed skills in the articulation between technical knowledge and artistic proportionalities through courses of Technical Drawing of Architecture. He collaborated professionally with SMAS in Ponta Delgada (Azores) and worked in Architecture Offices.
Since the year 2000, Daniel began to find his place in the creation of stone sculpture and dedicated himself to explore the various possibilities of this path. The ability to adapt to different expressions allow him to dedicate exclusively to carpentry, sculpture, and drawing since 2004.
Since then he has sought to identify the space of art as a place of becoming in which new attitudes, beliefs and feelings can arise. His own personal experiences are the starting point for the lightness he seeks to extract from the stones.
Daniel works in an intuitive way, stimulating irreverence and movement of the pieces, which create a bond between matter and mind. Regardless of the space in which we find ourselves – a public art project, a museum, a gallery, a living room or a library – the three-dimensional nature of the sculpture makes it possible to share a multidimensional space with the observer. The point of view changes according to the angle and the interaction that each observer establishes with the pieces, in a myriad of possible interpretations.
He lives and works for 13 years on a hill at Cabeço de Montachique. This place, in nature, allows a balanced oscillation between country life and the proximity to the city of Lisbon, bringing silence and stillness to some of his most recent creations. He has been exploring innovative stylistic dimensions and built an alternative studio, using recycled materials, to incorporate in his art the new essentials that experiences are asking for.