Visiting Joana Vasconselos’ studio in Lisbon is like climbing into a hyperbaric oxygen chamber without quite knowing what it will do to your senses. All week long, we had been fighting Lisbon’s damp, cool weather with hacking coughs and wicked colds. The only sounds that we heard were of sickness and fatigue. And then the burst of color, a wonder world where the impossible became real and people broke into a genuine welcome of fresh new life. We are on Judy’s inimitable annual art trip and this January it has been Lisbon.

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In the Vasconselos atelier, we find that everything that is right with the world is to be found here. An artist who has the highest standards for upholding employee wellness–this alone piques our curiosity. Here we witness an active work site where 60-80 studio apprentices of all ages are cared for like family. Nutritious meals are cooked everyday that soothes the body and eases the mind. Yoga and easily accessible meditation sessions helps relieve the stress of everyday life. Massage and bodywork stations de-escalate the pressures of a life lived on the quick. All of these quotidian, thoughtful gestures create an ambience of warmth and curiosity-driven problem solving. And if we have been the harbingers of chaos and catastrophe as visitors from the US, here is a model that promotes wellness as an antidote to the 21st century life of perpetual ill health.

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But this is getting far ahead of the story that Vasconselos weaves for us through her sculptural installations. First, who is Joana Vasconselos and how does she live life as fully as she does: unafraid, hopelessly hopeful, and immersed in the depth and breadth of each moment.

Our sources in Portugal had sent us a pre-arrival SOS that Joana Vasconselos was an artist who could not be missed. And indeed this is the truth. Everywhere around us are works that excite and surprise at every turn: its sometimes blatant use of Baroque overstatement, its subversion of traditional ideas, its willingness to make a point doubly and triply over in case we missed it the first time. Works that delight the senses and provoke thought all at the same time.

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Joana Vasconcelos is the artistic face of Portugal, a larger-than-life individual who creates epic-scale sculptural installations that are immersive and inescapable. She often mixes in performative components which encourage a whole-body experiential sensation from viewers–who are encouraged to walk through her installations and experience them with most of their senses.

Simply put, Joana Vasconselos mines the past to create new ideas for the future in order to better understand the contemporary present in which we all live. She blends art, design and fashion seamlessly so that the boundaries of one discipline bleeds naturally into another. In this way, she creates the layers of the contemporary moment.

What are the five facts that we need to know about Vasconselos’ art making?

Vasconselos takes an object and decontextualizes it, recontextualzes it. The transformation of extraordinary objects into something relatable and vice versa forces viewer response. The work retains its original distinctive shape yet becomes layered with new meaning. Thus, each piece becomes loaded with the possibilities that only art can provide.

As an example, her series of Valkyries float through the air and shimmy on land with an all-over presence. While their name has its roots in the dark and deathly, Vasconselos’ Valkyries are motherly and all-embracing. Waiting to be hugged, these critters are wrapped in traditional textiles that recall memories of childhood. Everything is laboriously hand sewn, just like your grandmother perhaps did in her time. The textile is inlaid with electrical lighting and other unexpected elements like music. Everything familiar is made unfamiliar. Meaning and sub meaning, connotation and denotation, are folded in to reveal the complex interweaving of a story that is rich with potential.

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Vaconselos wraps everyday objects– like a Venus de Milo or a bull’s head– in elegant, delicate crochet–an oxymoron that plays on the powerful feigning fragility and helplessness or vice versa. The wrapping is not meant for small objects alone, Pianos are wrapped as are laptops and commercially produced decorative objects in crocheted lentiling materials.

Vasconselos elevates traditional art to the highest level of artistic practice. She brings together traditional Portugueses handicraft techniques in sewing, knitting, embroidery, crochet and lacemaking. But in doing so, she also questions stereotypes, especially those lingering around the perception of women and womanly art. By revising form and content, scale and proportion, she forces us to remember the unsung weavers and artisans who remain anonymous and are forgotten by history.

Vasconselos first attracted international attention at the 2005 Venice Biennale, with A Noiva (The Bride)–a chandelier crafted with 25,000 tampons. And again in 2011, with her installation, Contaminacao, which opened the group exhibition, The World Belongs to You at the Palazzo Grassi.

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She raises critical questions on contemporary society–the status of women; class destruction; or national identity; the dichotomies of hand-crafted v. the industrially made, private v. public, tradition v. modernity, erudite v. pop culture. These are all analyzed for the possibilities that they create in the present moment.

She combines artistic with business skills that allows her to manage her large studio and her relationships with clients and patrons. Dior and Louis Vuitton are clients as are the largest of international art venues. She is a benevolent messiah who spreads her message with passion and colorful abundance.

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Vasconselos creates playful pathways into escapism, a fanciful flight into exploring new reinventions. She is vigorously involved in the merging and assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, such as the Baroque with the traditionally generated. She is capable of holding many values, meanings or appeals simultaneously.

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We see a lion wrapped up in docility.

Part of a three-story wedding cake, complete with candle holders and water spouts serve as decoration.

A Porsche gilded to the hilt and crafted with heavy woodwork reminds one of Louis the XIV. The inside of the car is velvety plush and feathery while its wheels are gilt-rimmed. It is the epitome of overstatement but its weight prevents movement: this car’s engine does not have horse power enough to move this monster of a piece.

An ice cream cone decorated with crocheted scoops.

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Three or four people are working on the Valkyries, while electricians connect the dots that will swell this Valkyrie with light. Color and design remind us of the comfort of home. But in this creative moment, Vasconselos reminds people not to forget their past. Don’t forget your grandmothers, don’t forget your culture, she seems to shout. They are the upholders of culture and memory and they are the only ones who will keep you grounded.