Kintu Studio Talk: Inês Brites

Kintu Studio: Inês thank you so much for having us around to your studio it's filled with tonnes of interesting objects.

I'd love to know what led you to start this project, Belisco, Belisco? 

Inês: Well I studied fine art at the arts school in Lisbon. For my fine art work I make lots of domestic but unfunctional items. I thought it would be interesting to make funcional things with Belisco, as a side experimental project. When I was still in school I began by making earrings for my own personal collection, because I was looking to wearing something different and didn’t find it at the time. So I started my own and then my friends wore them and it grew from there. This is what drove me in the beginning of Belisco.

 

Kintu Studio: So now you’re making these really interesting candles, how do you make them?

Inês: It's made with just paraffin wax or beeswax and pigment - that’s all. It’s quite simple. The candlewick is cotton. It’s a different kind of thread because it has to be knoted. Its hard to get the beeswax, but I know a good place nearby Lisbon. I make the mould from all sorts of shapes that interest me, they are meant to stand out. It's a messy process though..

 

I’m really messy, I tried to divide the studio into a clean station and the messy station but in the end it didn’t work.

 

 

Kintu Studio: From where do you find your inspiration for your work?

Since I remember I started to collect things, it began with little rocks from the beach and then I started to be interested in weird materials like silicon. The possibility of flexible materials really interests me. And then I started to do moulds because it can totally transform an object by reproducing it in other material or color. There’s a variety of possible solutions to turning an object into something else, with function or no function.   

 

Kintu Studio: Do you have favourite gallery in Lisbon and is there somewhere we can see your work?

Inês: I like Kunsthalle Lissabon gallery, its nearby here, I like it because they present site specific projects by artists from outside Portugal and its quite interesting the exhibitions there. 

You can see my work often at 3+1 Arte Contemporânea Gallery in Rato. Although, I have a new upcoming exhibition at Vaga in Azores in 6 May - it will be a collective of artists gathering pieces about intimacy, curated by Filipa Nunes.

Kintu Studio: You work with glass sometimes too, right? 

Inês: Yeah, it's not easy to work with glass but very beautiful. I like the lampwork more than the glass blowing, It’s really difficult. There is some danger with it and its very physical. You may need two or three people to work with. So I make earrings with this kind of glass. It’s nice.

Kintu Studio: And do you come from a creative family?

Inês: No not really, I'm like the black sheep haha. Well my grandmother is quite creative, she didn’t have the opportunity to express it because she came from a poor family. But for sure she is creative. She is always making patchwork clothes with leftovers. For sure my creative and messy side is from her. We are from Coimbra  - but I came to Lisbon when I was three. 

Kintu Studio: You have lots of interesting items in your studio, is that an electric heater mould over there?                               

Yes it is, it was intended it was intended to have holes in it but we did it like this. Let me show you. 

 

 - Inês’s studio is filled with objects stacked on her shelves - weird and wonderful pieces that show her true sense of character - 

 

Kintu Studio: I see you collect lots of stones as-well. Are you interested in the meaning of the stones? I don’t know anything about them.

Inês: Yeah I am fascinated by them, this one here brings money haha - it’s good to have a lot of them, but there is lots of them which I still don't know the meaning behind. Anyway it’s fun. 

 I have this collection of minerals over here. I’m not sure if I will use them in jewellery but I’ll see. I found them in a market in Germany. I really like flea markets. I have a lot. I tried to find the names and and meanings of all the minerals. This one is cool, it looks like glass of a broken bottle. It’s quite amazing. 

I have these glass gems from Portuguese chandeliers, they can be found a lot at the flea markets here. 

 

 

Kintu Studio: So you are always collecting items, because of the colour, the texture - and your house is also full of stuff? 

 

Inês: Yes always, my house is full of things!

This is a stamp from an old newspaper and I painted over it. I gave them some life by adding some colour.