Tapete de Arraiolos # 1. 200X230cm ( (78.7 × 90.6 in)
Design FRS. Crafted by Deolinda Carmo and Inácia Virtuoso. CITA. Photo Carbonara St.
Wool on Jute Canvas, 2025
Featured in Art of Arraiolos, p. 111
Art of Arraiolos
Article by Rachel Meek
Cover Magazine/ Issue 86/ Summer 2026
pp 106-111
Filipe Rocha da Silva builds worlds from accumulation. Across six decades and multiple media — oil on canvas, pencil on paper, printmaking, vídeo and textile — his work consistently returns to a single governing principle: the dense, patient layering of small marks, figures, or units of colour that, taken together, produce something larger than their sum. Subject matter is always subordinated to this relentless accumulation, which gives his work a rare unity. To look closely is to see the unit; to step back is to see the world it builds.
Newspaper photograph. Unidentified author.
1970s
I Can See # 1, Wool and Ink on Glued Paper on Canvas, 84,1s
I Can See (Study). Wool on Jute, paint and gold leaf. 24X41cm. 2026
I Can See # 2 Oil on Canvas, (In Progress) 2026
The project I Can See might be a reflection on tactility, exemplified by the wool patches and impasto oil applied to the canvas, The dots are Braille characters spelling out the sentence “I Can See”. They stand for the ability to read even in the absence of visual perception. The sower, the tractor and the field, may serve as a praise of agriculture, a theme that influenced other FRS’s words, such as “Fertility Landscapes”. Letters are symbols, that can also be seeds.
I Can See, Wool and Oil on Canvas, 60X90cm, 2026
Óbidos, Portugal. Várzea da Rainha, 1980s. 35mm slide.
Drawing.
Pencil and ink on paper, typewriting.