To walk through the Douro is to walk through my own history. The land, like the faces of those who work it, is sculpted by time and effort. My drawings, paintings, and photographs are a way of tracing these lines—capturing the repetitive gestures of those who tilled the soil, the shifting light that moves across the terraces, the resilience that holds the valley together.

The Douro is not just a place of beauty—it is a place of resistance, of work, of survival. Its wine is known for its richness, but behind it is a history of hands that bled, backs that bent, and generations that shaped and were shaped by this land. Through my work, I seek to reflect that duality—the grandeur of the landscape and the human stories held within it.

douro - shaped by both nature and man

The Douro Valley is a landscape of transformation—its contours carved by both time and human hands. Rugged and unyielding, this land of schist and steep slopes was shaped by labor, turning rock into terraces, terraces into vineyards, and vineyards into a landscape unlike any other. Today, its rolling lines and golden hues tell the story of endurance, adaptation, and an intimate dialogue between man and nature.

For centuries, my ancestors have worked this land—especially my maternal grandparents, whose hands, faces, and entire lives bear the marks of its weight. They knew the Douro not as a postcard image, but as a place of survival, of back-breaking labor, of intimate knowledge passed from one generation to the next. Their work was part of a fragile balance between small-scale agriculture, where families tended their own plots with care and sacrifice, and the large estates that have long dominated the region, expanding production while shaping its global image.