ART RESIDENCY
Give your art the time it keeps asking for.
For artists fitting their work around another career: uninterrupted weeks, space to make, and peers who understand.
Learn more →
Create · Connect · Belong
StartArt
Creative
Retreat
What if your next holiday was all about doing something you love? Live your passion in our creative experiences. Let’s talk face to face and find the experience that fits you.
4.9 on Google · 40 min from Porto
ART · PEOPLE · NATURE · ONE HOUSE
Who comes here
All ages and skill levels are welcome.
Fitting art around a busy career. Finally making time for a lifelong passion. Or sharing what you know with others. At StartArt, there’s no pressure to produce a masterpiece. Just time, space, and inspiration to enjoy the creative process. For solo travelers, partners or friends.
ART RETREAT
It's never too late to find your art.
A week to paint, write or photograph in a welcoming house in nature, among a creative community. All experience levels.
Learn more →
PAINTING COURSES
Teach where the art lives.
Lead a Painting Course in a house full of murals, with a room of curious people ready to learn. Tell us what you'd like to teach.
Teach with us →The StartArt experience
An art retreat in nature. A house where creativity lives.
At StartArt, painters, writers, photographers, and curious minds come together to create and connect.
Inside StartArt
A huge house where every wall tells a story.
Three floors, 14 rooms and over 30 hand-painted murals. Paint, studios and art in every corner, with a garden, a pool, the river and the mountains right outside.
Love the space? Pick your dates to see which rooms are free and book your stay online, or message us on WhatsApp and we’ll help you choose the right room.
Check availabilityMessage usPainting Courses
Learn to paint in a house full of murals.
Unlike our self-guided Creative Retreats, these experiences follow a fully structured teaching programme, with dedicated lessons, professional guidance, and opportunities to explore specific painting techniques. They are not included in the standard Creative Retreat rate.
See the courses →
Getting here
40 minutes
from Porto.
Fly into Porto and you are almost here. The house sits in Loureira, Vila Verde, a quiet village between Braga and the Peneda-Gerês mountains, with the Rio Homem at the end of the road.
Open in Google Maps →- Porto airport (OPO)40 min
- Braga15 min
- Rio Homem, on foot2 min
- Peneda-Gerês National Park1 h
The Journal
Passion creates good stories.
Meet the writers, muralists, photographers, teachers and curious people who have passed through StartArt. Read their stories, and what they say about the house.
Enter the Journal →
Free video call
Not sure where
to start?
Let’s talk
face to face.
Tell us what you’d love to create and we’ll help you find the right stay, the right dates and your way into the house.
Book a video callor write to marketing@startartresidency.com
