Pessoa’s cafe Tavira, welcomes artist John Lamonby

John Lamonby at Pessoa's cafe, Tavira
John Lamonby at Pessoa’s cafe, Tavira

Pessoa’s cafe in Tavira is a place for artistic expression, coffee and tapas. A new exhibition opens on the last Friday of each month. This month, October 2015, John Lamonby’s work is on display.

John is an English artist living in Faro.  He has been exhibiting around the Algarve region for over 15 years.  This exhibition is both an opportunity to see his paintings close up and to purchase his work.

John says, his work is all about freedom of expression and it is always evolving. He works mostly in oils and some acrylics, but his preference is oils as he feels it is a “living” medium.

While talking to John, he reflects that the figures in his work may be representational of himself as he encounters his surroundings and especially as he walks through the Ria Formosa.

One series of paintings is called “signs of life.” There are three paintings from that series on display.

Signs of Life
Signs of Life

These paintings were created while John was recovering from cancer of the thyroid. They convey the intensity of the appreciation for life. He says, as he recovered in the “brilliant” IPO hospital in Lisbon he saw in other people the “signs of life.”
John’s biography and his artist statements can be seen on his website here 

John and Matthijs reflect on "Signs of Life"
John and Matthijs reflect on “Signs of Life”

The artists behind the monthly exhibitions at Pessoa’s are Matthijs Warner and Isabel Maria Macieira. They are familiar faces in the artistic community in Tavira. They have been facilitating art exhibitions at Pessoa’s since January 2015.  Filipe, Isabel’s son, manages the bustling cafe and tapas bar. The cafe often has live music. Isabel has an art space in Tavira a couple of streets over from the cafe. Matthijs, will be presenting a talk on Art and Spirituality at the Álvaro de Campos Library in Tavira in October.

More details here.

Matthijs, Isabel and John outside Pessoa's cafe, Tavira
Matthijs, Isabel and John outside Pessoa’s cafe, Tavira

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