Holly Lacey Freeman
I come to Portugal every year to get away from city life, my parents have a place just outside the town of Loulé, in a tiny little village called Poco Novo. It’s a really remote location as it was an old derelict farmhouse at one time.
Iam 24 years old, and live in London. Being so cut off here gives a real time to reflect on things - there is no internet, TV etc. so it is sort of like being away from the modern age. As much as there is lots of tourism in surrounding areas -Vilamoura, Vale de Lobo etc. - being so close to a quintessential Portuguese town such as Loulé really opens your eyes to what it’s like to be a citizen here.
Portugal's commercial TVs have a lion's share of the viewing audience, and provide tough competition for the public broadcaster.
Her very first solo exhibition last May was extended due to popular demand, and since then, Carla Soares’ art has gone into overdrive.
Bernado Mota of Setubal is to be honoured as Winner of the Worldwide Illustrating Contest.
For many of the world’s cultures the sound of a popping cork is synonymous with good food, good times and good company. But we seldom give a thought to where that cork came from or how it was made. The members of the Rotary Club Estoi Palace International recently visited the cork processing factory, Novacortiça, near Sao Brás to discover the answers.
Brigitte von Humboldt’s world starts through a decorative wrought-iron garden gate set back from the sea. It leads down a winding path through rampant foliage and trees, and opens up into a light-filled studio.
She’s had a life that reads like something out of a storybook. There was even a stint as a Hong Kong celebrity running an upmarket disco in the ’60s. But you won’t hear much of it ‘from the horse’s mouth’, as BJ Boulter, in spite of her energy and focus, is an intensely private person. She doesn’t brag and she’s economical with the facts when they apply to her own successes. All one can really tell is that she’s been pretty damn good at everything she’s done. These days the busy career she pursued as a “fixer”/ line producer for commercials and freelance films has taken a temporary backseat in favour of her special brand of art.
Antonia Williams is a mistress of understatement. When we met her on the recommendation of our website friend and champion Paul Rees of the Algarve Daily News, we were simply told she did “fun things with portraits, which she runs first through an App”. We were given no inkling as to the lady artist’s other talents – which include the enviable ability to “do a Monet in about a week”. She’s good with Turner, too. Brueghel, Vermeer, in fact almost any Old Master or contemporary giant you could care to mention, with the exception perhaps of Jackson Pollock. “I wouldn’t be able to get the spontaneity”…
