Born and raised in Paris, though her heart is half Portuguese from her father’s side, Marie de Carvalho is the creative mind behind the OJO Gallery. Despite having little contact with Portugal until then, Marie moved to Lisbon in 2018 with two of her three children to give them the one-off opportunity to live outside their country of origin.
The initial plan was to stay for a year; still, her boundless fascination with Portuguese design and passion for forgotten crafts led her to stay for a bit longer – and allowed her to explore those traditional techniques by travelling up and down the country and partaking in different workshops that would mesmerise her even more.
The home she bought in Lisbon, designed by the renowned Portuguese architect Manuel Aires Mateus – a choice that pays homage to the Portuguese know-how from the very beginning – was the starting point for collecting unique, exclusive pieces made by young craftspeople and Portuguese artists, mostly unknown, that would spark the interest of those who visited her new refuge in Lisbon. The never-ending search for unique objects and her increasingly stronger connection towards all things handmade led Marie to open the OJO Gallery — a space that is also an echo of her artistic direction and curatorship supported by the collaboration with a new generation of craftspeople and artists.
OJO creates exceptional made-to-measure pieces using primary, ancestral materials (stone, wood, ceramic, marble), in limited or numbered series, which combine innovation and highly technical craftsmanship in a very contemporary way.
The collections draw their inspiration from the world of nature, emanating a delicate poetry and great elegance.
Ojo’s aim is to promote and support contemporary art and the artists who create it, and it presents a variety of artistic disciplines, including painting, sculpture, photography and much more. Ojo offers carefully curated thematic exhibitions, providing a coherent and captivating narrative through the works on display.
