With artistic training at the António Arroio Art School, IADE and AR.CO, and a career spanning more than thirty years of artistic creation and production, Teresa Milheiro’s approach to jewellery as contemporary art is unique.
Each piece of jewellery she creates is expanded, becoming a sculptural work, in which the intrinsic and extrinsic value of the variety of raw materials and technical mastery and innovation comes from prior research and conceptual investigation. In addition, the strict domain of contemporary jewellery is extrapolated through its disciplinary intersection with other forms of art, namely in diverse dialogues with photography, music, theatre and performance.
Since the beginning of her career, she has been a regular presence in national and international solo and group exhibitions, including two in Munich, in ’92 and ’07, at Schmuck, the most important contemporary jewellery exhibition in the world, in ’23 “Beyond Borders” Reverso Gallery, ’21 “Obsessive Controlling Tools” Espaço Camões, ’21 “Spy on” Reverso Gallery 1st Lisbon Biennial of Contemporary Jewellery, ’19 “the power of fragility” Sá da Costa Gallery, ’19 “Spirits & Guardians” ATTA Gallery, Bangkok, ’19 “1st Portalegre Biennial of Contemporary Jewellery” Church of the Convent of São Francisco, ’19 “Summer Guests” Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, ’11 in Belgium at the “Triennale Européenne du Bijou Contemporain”, ’23 “Passage to Another Side” at the Museum of Theatre and Dance, ’16 “Passage to Another Side” at the Money Museum, ’15 “On the Horizon” Gaffa Gaffa Sidnay Gallery, ’15 “Perfect Mutations” Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Sidnay, ’14 “Passage to Another Side” at the Puppet Museum, ’14 “Pin – 10 years” at the National Society of Fine Arts, ’13 “Abecedário” at the 40th anniversary Ar. Co at the National Museum of Contemporary Art, in ’12 with “Border City” at the Camões Institute, in ’08 in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro in the exhibition ’12 with “Border City” at the Camões Institute, in ’08 in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro at the “Joias Reais” exhibition, in ’04 at the “Ponto de encontro – 25 anos de intervenção de joalharia do Ar.Co” exhibition at CAM – Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, or in ’90 at the “Biennale des Jeunes Criateurs de L’Europe Meditérranee”, among countless others. In ’94, he co-founded Galeria Zé dos Bois. From ’98, for ten years, he collaborated with the company Archeofactu on jewellery collections for institutions and museums and inspired by their material or intellectual heritage, while maintaining individual and independent creation and production in parallel. In ’07, she set up Galeria Articula. Her work is included in national and international private collections, and she has been featured in numerous national and international catalogues and publications, as well as taking part in conferences and debates and on various panels as a jury member for competitions. She taught jewellery at Ar.Co from ’16 to ’19. Her website www.teresamilheiro.com features the works mentioned in this note and many more. In March ’18, RTP presented the documentary “Jóias para que Vos Quero”.
