Born in 1951 and raised in Peniche, a little town by the ocean, where he is still living, Xico Nico has been working as a professional blacksmith trainee for the Institute of Employment and Professional Training for twenty years.

So it is no wonder that about fifteen years ago he began occupying his free time by making some sculptures as a hobby using zinc plated steel and small boxes that he recycles and later become beautiful animals (snails, dogs, porcupines, goats, lizards,among many others) or human figurines, some of them related to the Catholic religion, such as nativities, Saint Anthony and Jesus Christ as the most popular ones.

The proximity of the sea, his long, inspiring walks along the beach always accompanied  by the cries of the seagulls (a constant and imposing presence in town) awakened him to the possibility of using the leavings of the sea in the sand, such as pieces of string and a great variety of stones some of them with fossils, others with encrusted seaweed, which he got used to collecting.

Thence his creation of a huge variety of fish, birds and human faces in a perfect combination between these two types of material, metal and stone, which makes his pieces true works of art we immediately recognize as his own and which gave him the First Prize of  Contemporary Handicraft during the International Market of Handicraft (FIA) 2008.