Pedrita Studio
Pedrita is a Lisbon-based design studio founded in 2005 by Pedro Ferreira and Rita João. The studio is known for its innovative approach to design, blending traditional Portuguese forms with contemporary reinterpretations.
Biography
Bio
Pedro Ferreira and Rita João, both born in 1978, established Pedrita with the aim of exploring and reinterpreting material culture. Their work spans a wide range of collaborative projects with international creative structures and clients.
Academic Carrer
Specific details about Pedro Ferreira and Rita João's academic backgrounds are not widely available online. However, their design expertise suggests a solid foundation in design and art education.
Professional Carrer
Since 2005, Pedrita has developed a variety of design projects in collaboration with global clients and creative entities. Their work is recognized for its engagement with traditional Portuguese techniques and its innovative approach to material culture.
Influences
Pedrita's work is heavily influenced by Portuguese traditional forms and techniques. They draw inspiration from both historical and contemporary material culture, seeking to reinterpret these elements in a modern and eloquent manner.
Works from Pedrita Studio
6 Leonar
Pedrita Studio
Edition of /10 + 5 AP
Tile panel
Signed and numbered by the artist
77 × 77 × 2 cm
2023
Emerging from Pedrita Studio’s ongoing exploration of material memory and the Portuguese tile as a visual language, 6 Leonar brings together two forms of reclaimed material. A cropped portrait sourced from an old photograph is reconstructed through ceramic fragments, each tile functioning as a pixel within the larger image. The title itself preserves a trace of the photograph’s original life, borrowing the name Leonar from the brand of photographic paper printed on its reverse.
Characteristic of Pedrita Studio’s practice, collection and recomposition become ways of giving existing materials new narratives. Despite its intimate scale, the work brings together a remarkable diversity of ceramic techniques, from discontinued Portuguese industrial trims to hand-glazed and hand-painted tiles and ceramic decals. As these fragments are selected from the studio’s evolving archive, every work in the edition is different. Moving between photography and ceramic, portraiture and abstraction, repetition and singularity, 6 Leonar gives both image and material a new life while preserving traces of where they came from.
Mimixa 003.jpg (Mystery Edition)
Pedrita Studio
Edition of /30
Risograph print on paper
Hand-finished, signed and numbered by the artist
40.7 × 27.6 cm
2026
Developed within the context of The Studio project at Underdogs Gallery, this edition was hand-finished by Rita João during her week-long residency.
Originally conceived as a glimpse into Pedrita Studio’s archive of discarded digital matrices, Mimixa 003.jpg reflects an interest in process, testing, and unexpected visual outcomes generated through experimentation and technical constraints. During the residency, the artist expanded this logic through direct manual interventions, introducing unique watercolour elements to each individual print.
Created in parallel with a new body of works on paper, the edition reflects the more immediate and open approach explored throughout the residency, where gesture, variation, and spontaneity became central to the creative process. As a result, each edition is unique.
Rita João co-founded, with Pedro Ferreira, the multidisciplinary design studio Pedrita Studio, based in Lisbon since 2005. The studio’s practice includes art direction, spatial design, conceptual art installations, NFTs, and tile panels. These panels, abstract compositions of color and texture that combine discontinued Portuguese tiles from the 1960s onwards, express the studio’s strong connection to tile-making and its ability to transform memories of the past into a contemporary language.
Rita João studied Design in Lisbon and in Delft. She began her professional career in 2002 in the 3D department of Fabrica, the communication research center of the Benetton group. She is co-author of the book Fabrico Próprio – o design da pastelaria semi-industrial portuguesa. Between 2015 and 2018, she taught Spatial Design at ESAD Caldas da Rainha and is currently a lecturer in the Design degree at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Lisbon.
Discover other artists
Exhibitions and Public Art
Projects
Festival Iminente - Oeiras 2017
- ±MaisMenos±
- berru
- Bordalo II
- Draw & Contra
- Pedrita Studio
- Fábio Colaço
- FAHR 021.3
- Felipe Pantone
- Catarina Glam
- Jorge Charrua
- Kruella d'Enfer
- Maria Imaginário
- Mosaik
- Obey SKTR
- Batida
- Teresa Esgaio
- The Caver
- Alexandre Farto aka VHILS
- Youth One
15 – 17 September 2017
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