MUNTHE ART MONDAY:
RITA PAUPÉRIO

Please introduce yourself and tell us about what you do.

I’m Rita Paupério, a visual artist based in Espinho, Portugal. My practice is rooted in abstract painting and drawing, and in the space between what we experience and what remains from it.

I work intuitively, often starting without knowing exactly where a painting is going. I’m interested in that point where control starts to give way to something less predictable. Colour, gesture, layers, erasure, transparency. They are all part of the process, but what matters to me is what can emerge from that process.

Before becoming a full-time artist, I worked for more than fifteen years in graphic design. That background still exists somewhere in the way I think about composition, but painting has given me a different kind of freedom. It has also helped me in the search for my own voice.

Rita is wearing our VUZLER PANTS and VAGARY T-SHIRT.

Rita is wearing our TUXA TOP.

Can you name some other female (artist) that inspires you and explain why they do so?

There are many, and the list keeps expanding. I’m drawn to women who have developed a language that feels unmistakably their own, often without needing to explain everything.

Helen Frankenthaler has been an important reference for me, especially her relationship with colour and the way the paint seems to find its own path across the surface. I’m fascinated by Hilma af Klint too. There is something extraordinary about how far ahead of her time she was, and about the freedom with which she followed a visual language that had very little to do with what was expected of her time.

Joan Mitchell is another artist I return to for the physicality and intensity of her paintings, while Agnes Martin speaks to me through something almost opposite: restraint, repetition and silence.

And then there is Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, the Portuguese poet. Her work has always stayed with me, particularly the way she writes about nature, light, the sea, time and the relationship between the inner and outer world. There is a clarity in her language that I find very powerful.

What connects these women for me isn’t a particular style. It’s the feeling that they each found their own way of looking at the world, and stayed true to it.

What would you like people to notice in your artwork?

I think what matters to me is that they can sense there is an honest search behind the work. I tend to look for structure in almost everything, and my artistic practice is no exception. I’m always trying to find that point where structure and instinct can coexist, without one taking over the other.

That moment when I stop rationalising and the work starts to lead is precious to me. It doesn’t happen by chance. It comes from looking, thinking, questioning, and then allowing something else to take over. I think that tension between what I can control and what I have to let happen is at the heart of my practice.

I’m also very interested in perspective and in time: how we look at something, how that changes what we see, and how everything is shaped by the time it takes to unfold. Perhaps this is why traces of landscape sometimes appear in my paintings. They are not really landscapes, but they can carry something of the experience of looking at one: distance, horizon, depth, light, a sense of being somewhere.

This connects to something broader that I keep returning to: the continuous flow of life, the processes that cannot be rushed, and the fact that we cannot escape the hourglass running through everything. And underneath all of this are the ordinary, essential things that are common to all of us. What remains when we lower our guard, let the walls fall away, and are simply ourselves.

That is probably the thread I keep following, even when I’m not consciously looking for it. Perhaps that is what I would like people to notice: not a particular meaning, but the search itself, and maybe something of themselves within it.

Could you explain more about how being a woman has affected your career?

I don’t think I can separate being a woman from the person I am, so naturally it has shaped the way I move through the world and, consequently, the way I work. I have always seen women as incredibly strong, beings that expand and adapt naturally. When that super power is in the right place, it is transformative. Sadly, that power is not always recognised or given the space it deserves.

There have been moments when I’ve questioned whether I was taking up enough space, whether it was the right time, whether I was being too ambitious. I think many women recognise that hesitation. At the same time, getting older has brought me a different kind of confidence. Less concerned with proving something, more interested in doing the work.

My path into art was also not linear. I spent many years working in another field before giving painting the space it needed. Now I see that as part of my trajectory rather than a detour.

What has been the most challenging aspect of being a woman in the arts?

Perhaps learning not to wait for permission.

There is a particular kind of doubt that can make you postpone things: showing the work, asking for an opportunity, taking yourself seriously. And there is also the practical reality of building a career while having a life that doesn’t always fit neatly around the work.

I’ve had to learn to trust the fact that a career can have its own rhythm. Mine certainly hasn’t followed a straight line. I’m still figuring it out, but I no longer see that as a weakness.

Rita is wearing our VUZLER PANTS and VAGARY T-SHIRT.