A self-taught artist, Inês Santiago was born in Coimbra in 1979 and raised by the sea in Nazaré, where the sound of waves and the hidden treasures buried in the sand shaped her sensitive and intuitive gaze from an early age.

Drawing and creating have always been part of her life, but her professional path initially followed another direction: through design and user experience, where she built a long and fulfilling career.

Throughout the years, she nurtured parallel artistic projects. After three years in Barcelona and a decade in the Netherlands, Inês returned to Portugal with a renewed perspective on her personal journey, and felt it was time to fully embrace her artistic voice, not as a side path, but as the core of her life.

A desire for inner listening and a deeper connection with the body led her to approach art in a self-taught and instinctive way. Clay, paper, acrylic, and found objects from the beach became tools for exploration, where gesture and intuition guide the creation process. Brushes crafted from reeds and coastal plants extend her instinct: simple tools that dismantle control and reveal what is essential.

Inês’s work lives between layers: the natural and the synthetic, restraint and raw impulse, memory and presence. It is in this space of tension that visceral, fragmented compositions emerge—like inner landscapes in transformation.