It was during the first pandemic confinement that José Lourenço began his new creative phase. Like millions of people around the world, the housebound artist saw the outdoors as a visual escape from the days spent inside four walls. This relationship is evident in his most recent works, which portray a vast, unattainable exterior alongside an intimate, living interior. 

Drawing inspiration from architects and designers of the twentieth-century modern movement, the artist depicts homely environments, seemingly stripped down, but incredibly human in the details that depict everyday life, such as an open book, a vase of flowers or a toy left in the midst of activity. 

José Lourenço immortalises moments through the sharp shadows and textures that permeate his paintings. Between the dream, represented by natural environments as far as the eye can see, and the hypothetical reality, materialised by the presence of mundane objects, the artist creates his own habitat, a refuge where he lives and finds protection.