Dear visitors As an artist I dedicate most of my time, if not a large part of my life to painting. I regard myself as a disciplined painter, both technically and artistically, yet I never allow conventional boundaries to constrain my inspiration or my creativity. I believe that life and death are closely linked to the subconscious and it is through this link that I find my inspiration. People generally consider me to be a complicated, even tortured character; my search for inspiration in everyday life requires a restless mind combined with the contradictory but complementary characteristics of humility and megalomania. An intense anguish drives me to search out the subtle subjective differences between beauty and ugliness. The visions I transpose onto canvass in my work today are inspired and guided by my life experiences, each piece of work is created to defy comparison, stimulate contemplation and generate great visual pleasure. Ever since childhood I have had a devoted passion for the great Italian Renaissance and Flemish masters; they have always been part of my creative existence and are the motivation for my exacting perfectionist style. André Martins de Barros