‘Art for me has always been colour and movement - a constant dialogue between matter, light and emotion.’

Teresa Martins is a Portuguese artist whose work is uniquely inscribed in the panorama of contemporary abstract painting. With a career marked by constant experimentation and the search for new forms of expression, Teresa Martins has built an artistic career deeply rooted in the relationship between matter, colour and light. Her work is not only an aesthetic exploration, but also a sensitive affirmation of creative freedom.

Teresa Martins' career began with a very particular fascination: glass. The transparency, delicacy and light of this material were elements that seduced and challenged her from the start. It was on this unconventional medium that she took her first steps into painting, using stained glass paint - a medium that, at the time, was more associated with decorative crafts than contemporary art. However, Teresa Martins broke with these limitations and transformed this technique into a deeply personal language.

By painting on glass with stained glass paint, Teresa Martins discovered the infinite possibilities of light and transparency. Her abstract compositions came to life with the incidence of light, projecting colourful reflections and creating optical games that challenged the viewer's perception. It was as if his works were in constant mutation, changing according to the brightness of the environment. This phase of her career was marked by an almost alchemical relationship with the materials, in which the artist's

gesture was combined with the fluidity and unpredictability of the paint on the smooth, cold surface of the glass.

Over time, Teresa martins felt the need to explore new textures and media that would allow her to expand her language. That's how she switched from glass to acrylic. Similar to glass but lighter and more resistant, it offers a different kind of freedom - it allows for larger formats, bolder interventions and an interesting interaction with light, which differs subtly from that of glass. A fertile territory for poetic and visual experimentation.

Driven by the creative restlessness that has always defined her, the artist began painting on tiles, reviving a tradition deeply rooted in Portuguese culture, but subverting it with a contemporary approach. In her tile works, geometry and the rhythm of repetition were often deconstructed by spontaneous gestures and bold colour compositions. It was as if she was establishing a dialogue between the past and the present, between the artisanal and the expressive, giving a new voice to a surface historically linked to architectural decoration.

Later, Teresa Martins found new spaces of freedom on canvas and paper. If glass taught her to dance with light and tiles to dialogue with tradition, canvas and paper gave her territories to explore gestures and emotion with greater fluidity.

The combination of stained glass paint with acrylic paint or alcohol ink became part of her creative process, reflecting an artistic maturity that no longer depended solely on technique, but on an increasingly clear vision of her own identity as an artist.

Throughout her career, Teresa Martins has taken part in several solo and group exhibitions, both in Portugal and abroad. Critics have highlighted the coherence of her work, not because of repetition, but because of the integrity of a path that has always favoured freedom, experimentation and authenticity. Her deeply intuitive painting rejects figurative representation in favour of pure emotion, internal rhythm and dialogue between colours and shapes.

Today, Teresa Martins is recognised not only for the originality of her technique, but also for her ability to move through abstraction. Her work continues to evolve, like a constant breath between gesture and silence, between the visible and the invisible. Her work is a celebration of matter and colour - a painting that you don't just see with your eyes, but feel with your whole body.