Brian Coutinho’s work creates a tension between intuition and precision. He captures associative images and emotions in ceramic objects through detailed line drawings, ensuring that the fluid and organic nature of his primary inspiration—the untamable and elusive vitality of nature—remains intact throughout all technical processes. Brian expresses this vitality in materials that are typically quite rigid: porcelain, earthenware, and stoneware, sometimes supplemented with other materials. The visual language that gradually emerges in his creative process is archetypal and narrative.

Brian's choice of materials is guided by the organic process that begins with clay. The forms he creates grow into images, where the act of creation defines the meaning. When additional materials are incorporated into a ceramic object, they must make an essential contribution to the work’s theme, so that the different elements reinforce each other’s expressive power. While working, Brian becomes aware of unreflected thoughts, assumptions, and questions. An object emerges through many different stages, resulting in a dual layering: one of material realization and one of meaning. Line drawings are applied to clay and glaze, colored in, and then stripped of color. In this way, a residue of earlier manipulations is captured in the object. This method creates a second layer of meaning, allowing Brian to express thoughts and emotions in detail and tell stories.

In addition to painting with glaze (and other specific techniques), Brian’s handling of figurative and narrative elements is characteristic of his work. His visual language often draws on familiar symbolism from fables, myths, folklore, and religions. Through this, he creates new meanings that take shape during the creative process. Symbolic interpretations of human existence interest him, and the process of unraveling these generates his work. By making his associations tangible and visible, they become reality. Brian is only satisfied with something he has created when it feels like a familiar perception.

It’s not the romantic idea of nature, but rather its organic and often gruesome aspects that inspire Brian. His fascination with (but also fear of) wild animals, natural forces, life, survival, and death dates back to his childhood. Through his figurative work, he integrates these childhood memories into his current visual language.

Brian creates a productive contrast between the "untamable" aspects of his representations and the highly cultivated nature of his technical approach. The same contrast applies to the materials he works with: they come from nature, but after all his processing, can they still be called natural? These internal contradictions are part of his working process and the fragmented perspectives he shares through his art.