Francisco Santos (swimmer)
Francisco José Ribeiro Lopes dos Santos, known mainly as Francisco Santos (born 17 May 1962 in Luanda, Angola) is an Angolan/Portuguese multi-talented artist. He is known by many names in various industries. As a swimmer, he uses the name Francisco Lopes Santos. In visual arts, he is known as Xesko. In poetry, he used the name Elias Karipande. In fantasy and science fiction, Francisco used the name Alan J. Banta, whose works were published in English and Portuguese. As a sportsman, he represented Angola in swimming at the 1980 Summer Olympics (Men's 100 m  Breaststroke and Men's 4 × 100 m Medley Relay). He also represented his country in other international games, including the Algiers 1978 All-Africa Games, the Moscow 1979 Seventh USSR Summer Spartakiade and the Mexico 1979 Summer Universiade. He was honored by the Angolan Olympic Committee in 2014, for being one of the first Angolan Olympic ambassadors. Biography. Francisco's parents were Portuguese, and had immigrated to Angola in 1959, where he grew up immersed in the African quarters ("musseques") of Luanda. Since very young, he was dedicated to the arts and sports. He began writing at 14 years  old and painting at 16 (watercolours and Chinese Ink). In that time, he had published some short stories and poems in several magazines and newspapers. In secondary School, he was the Founder and Publisher of the Magazine "The Bantalas" entirely dedicated to the arts (Fine Art Painting, Photograph, Prose and Poetry). He participated in a contest of Art Painting whose objective was the creation of a poster commemorative of the anniversary of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) obtaining the 1st place. In sports, he obtained several titles of National Champion, in Swimming (consecutively from 1972  to 1980) and Chess (1977 and 1979). He also represented his nation abroad several times, being the last time in the 1980 Summer Olympics (Moscow). He loves experiencing new techniques and ideas in Art Painting, being strongly influenced by the African art and by the work of Salvador Dalí. His interest by the painting avenged until 1986, time in that personal problems caused to stop having started again painting in the year of 2002. Noticeable Militant of the Youth of the Party (JMPLA), Francisco abandoned politics when he moved to Portugal in 1986. In Portugal, began a career as a  musician under the name of Francis Riba, having created several musical groups, being the better known, the psychedelic rock band ZEM. From 1982 to 1999 he was involved in several musical and theatrical projects as a technician, musician, producer and director, writing several adaptations and two original pieces. Graduated in the Soviet Union in 1986 in Chemical Engineering, where he frequented also the courses of "Scientific Drawing" and "Creative Thought in Post-modernism". In Portugal, he graduated in Data Processing, Systems Engineering and Programming. He frequented also the Courses of “Improvement in Painting Techniques for Oil Portraits”, promoted by the  Fine Art-Painter "Master Almaia", “Photograph and Graphic Design”, from IADE (Institute of Visual Arts, Design and Marketing), “Aesthetics and Theories of the Contemporary Art" and "Art Painting and Visual intervention”, from SNBA (National Society of Fine Arts). He has an MA of Contemporary Fine Arts from the Sheffield Institute of Arts (Sheffield Hallam University), Sheffield, England, and has several works displayed in public places and he is represented in several private and official collections in Portugal, Russia, France, Spain, Brazil, UK and Angola.