Teresa Milheiro

Bio

With artistic training at the António Arroio Art School, IADE and AR.CO, and a career spanning more than thirty years of artistic creation and production, Teresa Milheiro's approach to jewellery as contemporary art is unique.

Each piece of jewellery she creates is expanded, becoming a sculptural work, in which the intrinsic and extrinsic value of the variety of raw materials and technical mastery and innovation comes from prior research and conceptual investigation. In addition, the strict domain of contemporary jewellery is extrapolated through its disciplinary intersection with other forms of art, namely in diverse dialogues with photography, music, theatre and performance.

Since the beginning of her career, Teresa Milheiro is a constant presence in national and international exhibitions, both solo and collective, among which we highlight the presence in 1992 and 2007 at Schmuck in Munich, globally the most important exhibition of contemporary jewellery; in 2008 the exhibition Royal Jewels in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro; in 2011 at the Triennale Européenne du Bijou Contemporain in Belgium; in 2016 with way through to another side at the Museum of Money; in 2014 Pin – 10 years at Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes; in 2012 with Alphabet at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, celebrating the 40th anniversary of Ar.Co; in 2012, Border City at the Camões Institute; in 2004, Meeting Point – 25 years of intervention of Jewellery in Ar.Co at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; and yet in 1990 at the Biennale des Jeunes Criateurs de L’Europe Meditérranee; in 2024, 1984 at ZDB Gallery 40 years of career (official exhibition from the 2th Jewellery Lisbon Biennial), in Madrugada at Palacio da Calheta, 2nd Jewellery Biennial Lisbon among many others.

In 1994, she co-founded Zé dos Bois Gallery. From 1998, and for 10 years, she cooperated with the company Archeofactu, working on jewellery collections aimed at institutions and museums, inspired by their material heritage, keeping, at the same time, her own individual and independent creation and production. Her work is included in national and international private collections, and she has been featured in numerous national and international catalogues and publications, as well as taking part in conferences and debates and on various panels as a jury member for competitions. She taught jewellery at Ar.Co from 2016 to 2019. Her website www.teresamilheiro.com features the works mentioned in this note and many more. In March '18, RTP presented the documentary Jóias para que Vos Quero.

Statement

My work is inspired by society, politics, economics, wars, and all sorts of obsessions, pressures, and emotions transmitted by the masses. I absorb these themes and transmute them into my work through ironic language.
I’m fascinated by joints, articulations, movement, life, dead and all kinds of materials. I often create pieces influenced by certain found objects, and other times, I may diverge from an idea or concept to arrive at the form of a piece.

I do not like feeling trapped in rigid ways of working; it interferes with my inspiration. Jewellery for me represents a form of expression like any other, but with the difference that we carry it with us. That makes interaction with other people more visible – in fact, it can sometimes demand a great deal of courage to wear some pieces.
 

CV      

On sale at