SMILE
About the artist
Ivo Santos was born in Lisbon in 1985. From a very young age he was interested in drawing, driven by his mother, it was through two cousins that interest turned into passion. In the 1990s, through the film Beat Street and the sounds of Vanilla Ice, Kriss Kross or MC Hammer, discovers the love for Hip Hop Culture, embracing Graffiti as the following strand. At the beginning of the new millennium he risks spray painting for the first time, using the pseudonym SMILE, with cans from a hardware store. Not obtaining the desired result, he dedicates the following couple of years to perfecting the technique and materials. In 2001, when he returns to the streets, he immediately demonstrates his talent, winning the Odivelas Graffiti Contest the following year. From there, several interventions arise, mostly for the Ramada Parish Council, where he lived. Its national projection takes place in 2004, when virtually unknown to the community in general, it categorically wins the Oeiras Graffiti Contest, the most important event on that date. This is followed by second place in 2005 and 2006 revalidates the title, cementing its name in the Portuguese artistic elite, reaching international status in 2009, by winning a contest in Barcelona, against consecrated names in world graffiti. The decision to professionalize his art brought him works for such distinct entities as Nissan, Mc Donald's, Billabong, Red Bull, among many others, as well as the sponsorship of Casio G- SHOCK, Sollac Tintas, NEW ERA, Monte Campo and CANON. It also became a regular presence in reports on urban culture in general and graffiti in particular, both on the four main television channels in Portugal and on radio and the internet. High point of his activity as an urban artist obtained it in 2013, where his intervention in the gable of a building in Loures, portraying a young man with a complicated medical history, generated a wave of media solidarity that resulted in the resolution of the problem. The "Bartolo" mural will forever be referenced as a case study of how urban art can help solve social dramas. The internationalization of his art has been taking place, with invitations to participate in events in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Malta and Brazil. At the same time, he created the First Art Atelier&Gallery, a space open to the public, and which serves as a place for exhibition and presentation of projects (visual and/or sound) of national and foreign artists. He is currently the President of ACUParte, a Non-Profit Cultural Association, which aims to promote and energize Urban Culture throughout the country, through experimentation, innovation and development in Visual, Performing and Sound Arts. It currently resides in the parish of Pontinha, in the Municipality of Odivelas.