Styler

Born in Lille to a Portuguese father and a French mother, João Cavalheiro grew up between two countries before settling in Portugal. He began painting in 2004, entirely self-taught, moving from illegal surfaces to derelict factories and eventually to commissioned public walls. His childhood nickname "Style", brought from France, became "Styler" in 2009 — the added letter felt more distinctive in his lettering and signature.

Firmly rooted in realism, he combines spray paint, rollers and brushes to produce large-scale trompe-l'œil portraits and animals on architectural surfaces. In 2016, during the MURO LX festival in the working-class neighbourhood of Bairro Padre Cruz, he painted a hyperrealistic eagle head across six storeys in just three days — one of the quarter's most striking works. His reach extends beyond Portugal: a tribute portrait to landscape architect Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles, painted in Alvalade, was picked up and shared on social media by rapper Snoop Dogg.

Drawing on Salvador Dalí, Banksy, Odeith and Vhils as influences, Styler has gravitated toward animals and nature as primary subjects. In 2021 the French Embassy in Lisbon invited him to paint a mural on a primary school in the Ajuda district for the Festa da Francofonia, depicting a child, flowers, a butterfly and open hands as symbols of diversity and solidarity across francophone nations.