By Benjamin Parkin in The Culture TripExplore Portugal's vibrant contemporary art scene, where established stars like Paula Rego rub shoulders with up & comers like Santiago Ribeiro.

The Culture Trip showcases the best of art, food, culture and travel for every country in the world. Have a look at our Portugal and Europe sections to find out more or become involved.Portugal's 10 Contemporary Artists and Where to Find Them

Though it might be small, Portugal isn’t lacking when it comes to important contributions to global culture – be it through food, literature or art. Here are ten of Portugal’s most exciting contemporary artists, from the internationally established to the up-and-comers who are worth tracking down next time you’re in one of the cities exhibiting them.

© Pedro Szekely/Flickr

Paula RegoPaula Rego is firmly established in the international art world for her paintings, which often draw upon fairytales and children’s stories to create surreal, satirical narratives. ‘War’ illustrates a scene not unlike a 19th century war epic – except in this case, most of the characters have been transformed into lifeless-looking rabbits. ‘The Maids’ takes a scene from the Jean Genet’s play of the same name, in which two maids attend to a wealthy family whom they go on to murder. The painting manages to juxtapose soft colours and a scene of apparent domestic tranquillity with ominous undertones: the pet appears to be some sort of monster, while the young woman appears, upon closer inspection, to have a moustache.

Saatchi Gallery, Duke Of York's HQ, King's Rd, London SW3 4RY, +44 20 7811 3070

Courtesy of Santiago Ribeiro

Santiago RibeiroSantiago Ribeiro is one of Portugal’s most active surrealist painters, updating the genre for the 21st century. Consistent motifs in his work reoccur in a suitably dream-like fashion, with anonymous naked figures assembled like ants, and rectangular and conical structures. In ‘The City of Slat’, these figures march along infinite production lines, trapped inside this city; in ‘Butterflies’, they acquire wings, appearing to be free themselves. Santiago Ribeiro is currently organising International Surrealism Now, the latest installment in a series of surrealist exhibitions around the world, in his native Coimbra.

The Palais de Lousã, Rua Viscondessa do Espinhal 3200-257, Lousã, Coimbra, Portugal, +351 239 990 800

Courtesy Joana Vasconcelos

Joana VasconcelosWith three appearances at the Venice Biennale and major exhibitions at the Palace of Versailles and Manchester Art Gallery, Joana Vasconcelos is undoubtedly one of Portugal’s most high profile contemporary artists. Her style centres on taking feminine objects and placing them into expected contexts – usually with colourful, playful results. ‘My creative process is based upon the appropriation, decontextualisation and subversion of pre-existent objects and everyday realities,’ she told The Culture Trip. ‘Lilicoptère’ consists of a helicopter covered in pink ostrich feathers and crystals, originally conceived for her Versailles exhibition. She chose ostrich feathers, she explained, because they were a favourite of Marie Antoinette. Meanwhile ‘Britannia’, which was made for the Manchester exhibition, is a serpentine trail of a seemingly infinite variety of colourful textiles.

Paços do Concelho, Praça do Município, 1149-014, Lisbon, Portugal, +351 21 323 6200

Adriana MolderPainter Adriana Molder brings influences from film and drama into her stark portraits, in which she captures the faces of characters caught at crucial moments in a narrative. Indeed, she trained as a stage designer before turning to study fine art and drawing. Her portraits, often made without colour, evoke black-and-white films, though as she explained to The Culture Trip, ‘I wanted to work in black and white, [though] … now there are other colours naturally joining my work.’ Strong, gripping tones of sanguine red often punctuate the faces in her work. Many of the portraits are inspired by characters in novels, such as 19th century Portuguese novel The Goat-Footed Lady, or Virgina Woolf’s The Haunted House.

Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Elvas, Rua da Cadeia, 7350-146 Elvas, Portugal, +351 268 637 150

J orge Santos, Change, 2010, Oil on canvas, 36 x 60 inches | Courtesy 101 Exhibit

Jorge SantosJorge Santos was born in 1959 in Angola to a Portuguese family, but left for Portugal when the civil war began in 1975, before moving to the United States in 1982. His paintings strive for a hyperrealism, at times mistakable for a photo – yet it is clear that nothing is quite what it seems. There are strong sexual undertones – indeed, overtones in much of his work— which depict everything from a domestic family to a lone figure. The scenes are boxed into tight, almost claustrophobic frames, creating a tension and an artificiality that almost contradicts the precision of the brushwork. And that’s the point; Santos’ paintings give the viewer plenty to think about.

323 NE 59th Terrace, Miami, Florida 33137, USA, +305 573 2101

Courtesy of Catarina Botelho

Catarina BotelhoCatarina Botelho trained as a painter before turning to photography. Her work portrays simple, almost mundane, subject matter, but brings out an unseen beauty in the settings. The ‘Time and Manner’ series, for example, pictures laundry baskets, brooms and washing-up liquid against the marble of a laundry room. Yet we also stop to appreciate the beauty of the marble, and the gentle colours and forms of the objects placed against it. ‘Between the Words and Us’ similarly takes the disorder of a construction site and thrusts it before us, revealing the forms and colours that constitute it.

Galeria Presença, Rua de Miguel Bombarda 570, 4050 Porto, Portugal , +351 22 606 0188 .

Francisco VidalFrancisco Vidal was born in Portugal to an Angolan father and Cape Verdean mother, and his work engages with this Lusophone African identity. Despite being born and raised in Portugal, ‘the rhythm of my body makes my work African,’ he explains. His drawing ‘Black Panthers’, for example, captures this trans-national black identity in depicting a map of the world, with Africa at its epicentre, and other parts of the diaspora, such as Portugal, the United States and Brazil, emphasised. ‘Black Pietá’ is simply a negative of Michelangelo’s ‘Pietá’, with the effect of creating a black Christ and black Mary.

The Centro Cultural Português de Luanda, Av. de Portugal 50, Luanda, Angola, +244 222 330 243

Courtesy Pedro Cabrita

Pedro Cabrita ReisHaving represented Portugal at the 2013 Venice Biennale and exhibited extensively across the world, Pedro Cabrita Reis is one of the country’s most high-profile artists. He takes industrial materials – metal bars, neon lighting, and electrical wires – and uses them to take over the exhibition space itself. His ‘A remote whisper’ for the Venice exhibition did just this, and even added workmen’s jackets to emphasise the process of creation in art. Some works, such as ‘The Moscow Piece’– a neon light, some shoddily applied paint, loose wire hanging – takes this motif to an extreme, almost as if attempting to deceive the viewer into mistaking the work for a building site.

Tate Modern, Bankside, London, SE1 9TG, +44 20 7887 8888

Vasco AraújoVasco Araújo works with a wide variety of mediums – video, sculpture and painting, among others – to convey his messages, which tend to centre on questions of power and identity across history and culture. ‘Botany’ for example, consists of a series of photos of plant life assembled on (and in) a table. Mixed up among the scenes of plant life are pictures of colonial-era Africans, questioning our associations of the jungle and exoticism. ‘My Servant’ exhibits suit collars, symbols of patriarchy and power, in a box overlaid with a text written by the imagined master, with his thoughts about his servant.

Chiado Museum, Rua Serpa Pinto 4, 1200-444 Lisbon, Portugal, +351 21 343 2148

Courtesy of Galerias Múrias Centeno

Carla FilipeCarla Filipe was the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s artist in residency in London in 2010, before returning to her home of Porto. Her multi-medium works combine pieces she has created with historical archives, giving a sense of continuity with history. For example, her Da Cauda à Cabeça is based on her research into Portuguese railway systems, and in the work she creates a comprehensive portrait of railways in Portugal, through sculptures using industrial materials, archives about the people who worked in the museums, and video footage, both real and fictional.

The Museu Coleçao Berardo, Praça do Império, 1449-003 Lisbon, Portugal, +351 21 361 2878

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The Culture Trip showcases the best of art, food, culture and travel for every country in the world. Have a look at our Portugal and Europe sections to find out more or become involved.