To launch our first silkscreen collection of art prints, Paper Collective collaborated with New York based, Portuguese artist Lourenço Providência. We met with Lourenço in Copenhagen to watch his silkscreen prints come to life, and to talk about his process and inspirations behind the collection.
PC: Can you tell me about the initial inspiration for your first collection for Paper Collective, your trips to Mexico, and how the architecture and colours influenced you?
LP: This body of work was developed after a trip to Mexico City, where I became deeply fascinated by the city's culture, architecture, and atmosphere. What struck me most was the use of color: vivid, saturated, and often unexpected, present across awnings, clothing, signage, and the built environment.I was particularly drawn to the work of architect Luis Barragán, whose use of flat color defines space and creates moments of focus. That approach became a key reference for me.In this series, I introduced blocks of flat color as structural elements within the compositions, almost like openings through which the viewer can look. In this sense, in this collection I treat color not as a background or secondary element, but as an active and primary component of the work.
PC: How do you catalogue the daily moments that inspire your work? Are you constantly sketching moments in time, or do you take photographs or notes?
LP: I often take photographs and draw in the moment, but most of my work emerges from memory. These memories are already shaped and slightly distorted by imagination, where moments and sensations begin to merge.Each drawing becomes a kind of reconstruction, or even a fantasy, rooted in real events, places, and people.
PC: What is important for you when capturing these seemingly simple moments through your work?
LP: I try to appreciate daily what surrounds me and find value and meaning in it. In that sense, drawing becomes a meditative tribute to those moments. I’m often drawn to simple, everyday scenes, as I believe these are what ultimately give life its meaning. It’s a perspective I try to extend beyond my work, as a guiding principle.
PC: These pieces stich together the simple and the more surreal. Why do you enjoy bringing a sense of humor and play into your practice?
LP: I’ve always been interested in the line between reality and fiction, where one constantly informs the other. I like my work to exist along that line, with one foot on each side. Humor and playfulness are a source of inspiration for me and naturally find their way into my work. I see humor as a way of not taking ourselves too seriously, of embracing vulnerability and imperfection. It also becomes a way of navigating a world that can at times feel overly serious or heavy.
