Elementos Combinados
Torres Vedras, Portugal, 1992
Guta Moura Guedes started her career in the field of design in 1992, when she co-founded the Elementos Combinados studio alongside Rui Morgado.
Starting out as a self-taught designer, Guta planned, edited and marketed various series of equipment and interior design. Having always worked with artisans, Guta was interested in the heritage of intangible knowledge that she would discover in the rural interior of Portugal by the end of the 20th century. Until 1999 she dedicated herself to a series of projects that focused above all on the interdisciplinarity of design, exploring the relationships between this discipline and other creative fields.
Some of her main projects led her to explore the relationship between literature, poetry and design. For instance, in the “Memorial do Convento” project, she designed and produced a limited edition of pieces based on 7 characters from the book with the same title by the Portuguese Nobel Prize winner for Literature, José Saramago; and she also developed “Ervas”, a project on the poetry of Herberto Helder.
In the field of music, Guta developed a series of 17 pieces on Bach’s Goldberg Variations, performed by Glenn Gould, and in the visual arts she explored the languages of Matisse, Klimt and Mondrian. She worked with her younger sister Eva Moura Guedes, a graduate of the Ricardo Espírito Santo Foundation, combining the centuries-old art of inlayed furniture with contemporary design.
She took part in numerous solo and group exhibitions.
