As the year 2025 has begun, it’s a moment to reflect on the artists who created interesting works in 2024. Miguel Barros is one such artist, crafting paintings that challenge how we see our surroundings. Born in Lisbon in 1962, he holds citizenship in Portugal, Canada, and Angola, experiences that have shaped his artistic perspective. Since moving from Angola to Calgary in 2014, his work has continued to evolve, blending structured design with a more fluid, expressive approach. With a degree in Architecture and Design from IADE Lisbon, earned in 1984, Barros combines technical precision with a painter’s sensitivity, building compositions that hover between constructed space and dreamlike memory.
His art is both personal and universal, often addressing themes of environmental responsibility and cultural history. The ocean frequently appears in his work, reflecting both its beauty and its fragility. Plastic Oceans, for example, is more than just a painting—it’s a statement, urging people to acknowledge the damage done to marine ecosystems through pollution and waste. His art is not just about looking; it’s about engaging with the world in a more conscious way.
Dreaming in Paint: The Cities of Miguel Barros
Barros’ latest works, The Fantasy of a Dream I and The Fantasy of a Dream II, created in Calgary in 2025, are visual explorations of memory and place. These pieces don’t just depict a city—they recreate the feeling of moving through one, where past and present blur, and streets seem to shift and transform as you walk them.
Each piece, 100cm x 100cm, is painted with oil and mixed media on recycled PVC banners. The choice of material is intentional. Barros often repurposes surfaces, turning discarded materials into something meaningful. The worn textures of the PVC banners add depth, reinforcing the idea that every city carries layers of history beneath its surface. These works capture that sense of time pressing in on urban spaces, making the familiar feel both permanent and fleeting.
Barros describes his creative process as following a dream—one where he wanders through streets and alleys that once shaped his life. His paintings bring these places back, not as exact replicas, but as impressions infused with memory and emotion.
Cities That Shift and Breathe
In The Fantasy of a Dream I, Barros constructs a cityscape that is alive with movement. Buildings stretch and fold into one another, geometric patterns overlap, and space feels elastic. The color palette—deep blues, earthy browns, and streaks of gold—mimics the way light plays against old facades. There’s an architectural foundation beneath it all, but nothing stays fixed. This is a city that shifts, built as much from memory as from brick and stone.
Its companion piece, The Fantasy of a Dream II, presents a more subdued atmosphere. Here, the city softens, edges blur, and buildings seem to dissolve into the air. The textures are heavier, and the brushwork hints at structures that have stood for generations, their surfaces worn by time. This city is not just a place—it is a sensation, a lingering presence that stays with you even after you’ve left.
Between the Real and the Imagined
Barros’ background in architecture shapes his paintings in a way that sets them apart. His cities are not direct representations but reconstructions of experience. Perspective bends, lines stretch, and dimensions shift, creating a sense of movement that pulls the viewer in. His work doesn’t capture a specific location; it captures how places live on in our minds.
There is also a dreamlike quality to these pieces. They exist somewhere between reality and memory, between the streets we walk and the way we remember them. Barros paints cities that are both familiar and elusive, places that could be Lisbon, Luanda, or Calgary—or all three at once.
Using oil and mixed media on PVC adds another layer to this narrative. The mix of traditional and industrial materials echoes the way cities themselves are built—new structures rising alongside the old, history hidden beneath modern surfaces.
A Journey Through Time and Space
The Fantasy of a Dream is not just about nostalgia; it is about the way places shape us and how we carry them long after we have moved on. Barros invites viewers to step into these imagined streets, to navigate their alleys, and to feel the weight of history that lingers in every corner.
At the same time, his use of recycled materials grounds his work in the present. These paintings are not just about remembering; they are about rethinking, reimagining, and transforming. Art, for Barros, is not just about preserving the past—it is about shaping the future.
His work continues to develop, but his focus remains steady. He is an artist who builds connections—between past and present, between structure and expression, between the physical and the dreamlike. The Fantasy of a Dream is just one more step in that unfolding vision.
