Eduardo Matos wins the FLAD Drawing Award 2026

The artist was unanimously distinguished by the jury, which highlighted the way he articulates drawing with the lived experience of the Mouraria neighborhood, in Lisbon. The finalists’ exhibition can be visited at Drawing Room Lisboa until October 31.

Eduardo Matos is the winner of the FLAD Drawing Award 2026. The jury awarded the prize unanimously, recognizing the uniqueness of his artistic proposal, which crosses drawing with the lived experience of a specific territory in the city of Lisbon: the Mouraria neighborhood.

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1970, Eduardo Matos lives and works in Lisbon. He grew up in the city of Porto, where he studied and began his professional activity as an artist in 1999. He is the editor of the Inland Journal and curator of several projects. Throughout his career, he was a fellow of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and a founding member of the Olympic Hall.

In the grounds for the decision, the jury highlighted the way in which the artist articulates, with particular intelligence and sensitivity, a projectual dimension with a meticulous drawing work. The proposal explores the relationships between time and space through gestures of continuous flow, apprehensible in two-dimensional compositions. The experience lived in Mouraria, marked by the passage of time and social transformations, constitutes the subject of artistic creation.

The jury of the FLAD Drawing Prize 2026 was chaired by the artist Maria Capelo and included Mónica Careaga, director of the Drawing Room fair, and Miguel von Hafe Pérez, curator of the FLAD Collection.

In the appreciation of the works presented in the finalist exhibition, the jury also highlighted the high quality of all the proposals. It also highlighted that the reduction in the number of selected artists contributes to a clearer reading of each work, allowing the proposals to gain greater density and raising the overall quality of the show.

The exhibition of the five finalist artists of the FLAD Drawing Prize 2026 is on display at Drawing Room Lisboa, at the National Society of Fine Arts, until October 31. An opportunity to get to know the proposals selected in this edition up close and explore different contemporary approaches to drawing.

The FLAD Drawing Award reinforces the Luso-American Development Foundation’s commitment to contemporary artistic creation and support for the visual arts in Portugal.