About Us

The Story Behind Street Buddha & Mr. Red

My connection to art started long before I ever walked people through Lisbon’s streets.

As a kid, I was always drawing, always creating something. Art was the natural way I understood the world. That passion eventually led me to study advertising creativity and graphic design, where I learned how ideas, visuals, and storytelling could come together.

But my real turning point came in 2012.

A friend of mine decided to change his life completely and become a full-time street artist. In the beginning, it wasn’t glamorous at all — rough pieces, learning by doing, figuring things out wall by wall. But watching that journey sparked something in me. I started researching graffiti and street art culture more deeply.

The more I discovered, the more fascinated I became.

Street art wasn’t just painting walls — it was rebellion, creativity, politics, humor, identity, and freedom, all mixed together in the public space. A whole underground language written across the city.

I was hooked.

Then in 2015, when I started working as a guide in Lisbon, I realized something: people were walking past incredible pieces of street art every day without understanding what they were seeing. The murals, the tags, the messages — the city was speaking, but no one was translating.

So I decided to create one of the first street art tours in Lisbon.

It quickly became something special. Not just a tour, but a way to show visitors the city through a different lens — explaining the artists, the culture, and the stories hidden on the walls.

Around the same time, the passion became too strong to stay only on the sidelines.

So I started creating street art myself under the name Mr. Red.

What started as curiosity turned into a full creative path: painting, exploring the culture deeper, and sharing it with people from all over the world.

Today I run Street Buddha Tours, where I combine everything that shaped this journey — art, street culture, storytelling, and Lisbon itself.

Because for me, street art isn’t just something you look at.

It’s something you live, understand, and feel.

And Lisbon is one of the best canvases in the world.

Formation

I’m passionate about Art, History, Culture, Nature, Graffiti and Street Art. I have formation in History, History of Art, Graphic Designer and Advertising Creativity.

Spoken languages

English and Portuguese