Pedro Besugo Portugal, b. 1971

Pedro Besugo, born in Setúbal in 1971, lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal. From an early age, Besugo has always managed to combine his two passions: art and travel. Won a first prize drawing competition when he was seven and bought his first camera at the age of ten. As a teenager, he began to hitchhike throughout Europe, sleeping in parks, train stations, living in squats with different communities, including the Hare Krishnas, and experimenting with street art. This taste for the extreme led him to be selected and win the International Survivor reality TV show competition in Panama in 2001, where contestants are stranded on a remote island, trying to survive while facing challenging tasks.

All of these travels inform his art practice greatly. His multilayered paintings are a juxtaposed record of travel memories, maps, network lines, coordinates, city landmarks, architecture, and transit spaces. His technique blends a web of abstract drawing, painting, collage, and ink.

In 1986, Besugo entered the secondary school Escola Artística António Arroio in Lisbon, where he later taught in the Audiovisual Image and Communication Department from 2007 to 2010. In 2001, he earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts - Sculpture, from the Faculdade de Belas Artes de Lisboa, followed by a Master of Fine Arts and Education from the Universidade Lusófona in Lisboa in 2011. In 2010, he exhibited at Arton Art Gallery, The Museum of Kyoto, and in Eye of Gyre Gallery, in Tokyo, Japan, representing a series for the 150th Anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Commerce between Portugal and Japan.

Besugo’s work is featured in private and public collections including: Fundação Oriente, Macau, China; Western Union Philippines for the Art Collection of the Embassies in the Countries of Asia Pacific, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Macau; Portuguese Embassy in Tokyo; Private Bank Atlântico, Lisboa, Portugal; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lisbon, Portugal; Museu do Trabalho Michel Giacometti, Setúbal, Portugal; Valormed, Lisbon, Portugal; Pfizer, Anderlecht, Belgium; Garrigues, Lisbon, Portugal; and Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicaçoes, Lisbon, Portugal.