João Migwel Portugal, b. 1996

João Migwel lives and works in Lisbon. He holds a degree in Design from IADE, Lisbon, and also attended the Illustration and Comics course at Ar.Co.

His artistic practice spans painting, muralism and ceramic sculpture, exploring the everyday world of objects and mundane situations through irony and a sharp sense of humour. Through processes of transformation and defamiliarisation, Migwel creates what might be described as “strange bodies”: familiar forms that are taken out of context and reimagined, turning seemingly ordinary objects into absurd, fragile or ambiguous presences. By subverting their usual function and meaning, the artist explores the tension between the useful and the useless, the mundane and the extraordinary, questioning the symbolic and emotional significance we attach to the material world around us.

In 2024, he published Home is Where The House Is with the publishing house Stolen Books, accompanied by an installation of the same title. His work has also been presented at the Bordalo Pinheiro Museum in Lisbon and the Abel Manta Museum in Gouveia, as part of group exhibitions.

Somewhere between the absurd, humour and the unexpected, João Migwel paints ghosts for fun.