Frederik Beerbaum, 72, works and lives in both the Algarve and in Amsterdam (Holland), and has more than once been moved by Portugal’s fiercest natural disasters to pick up his paintbrush and project his interpretation of them onto canvas.
He bought a property in the Aljezur region of the Portugal’s Algarve in 2003. That year was the year of the last great fire in the Monchique region, the first natural disaster in Portugal to inspire a series of his paintings.
“I went up there every day, by taxi, for five to six weeks, to see the changing landscape, fighting elements and feelings”, to paint the aftermath, he explained.
News of his commitment to capturing the scorched Monchique reached Aljezur town hall, and an exhibition of his works titled ‘Where no Birds Sing’ was organised and supported by the council.
Last year, in August, after returning from a period in his homeland, Mr. Beerbaum was again inspired by calamity after seeing a picture on the front page of The Portugal News regarding the devastating Pedrógão Grande fires, and moved to create another series of works of art.
“It was a lady stood in front of a house” in a landscape made moon-like by the ashen aftermath of the catastrophic fire, he explained, recalling: “This started a process of transition” and “inspired me to make a hundred or more paintings and drawings” during the past year.
From tragedy and with “empathy, passion and pain” he created a series of paintings titled ‘Journey into the night’, which will form part of the selection on display at the upcoming exhibition at the Espaço+ Gallery in Aljezur.
The exhibition, whose main body is named 'The Moonlight Between Us', will be inaugurated by Aljezur Mayor José Gonçalves and the Commandant of the local fire service on 15 September.
Mr. Beerbaum says he considers the drawings and paintings an “elegy” to “everyone who has suffered in the fires over the last year”, and no doubt to those who suffered in this most recent bout of blazes, which last weekend tore through the Algarve and Alentejo.

A series of 500 picture-cards have also been printed of the artist's works, whose sale proceeds will be dontated to the fire-fighters of Aljezur.