Simultaneously, he searched for his roots in the past, and he found himself reflecting on how the present seemed haunted by the memories of 41 years of oppression (Salazar and Caetano's dictatorship – 1933–1974): "We sense it is not Botelho' personal nightmare, but a collective one; the subject he is taking on is the ruinous fabric of a whole society.

"[2] At the Byam Shaw School of Art Botelho "created a new vision of oppression with a cast of archetypal characters, led by the figure of the Priest/Bishop/Dictator", and by the time he arrived at the Slade, he "was discovering a genuine iconography – a world of donkeys and hovels, of peasants working the fields with primitive tools, of crumbling stone – built walls – a pre-industrial past that stands as a metaphor for modern Portugal".

By the late 1990s his multi-layered representations alluded to a wide range of subject matter, from present-day life to traditional religious themes, "bridging the gap between sacred and profane, contemporary temporality and timelessness".

[5] In 2006 he "resorted to a new medium, photography, to build a body of work that nevertheless reflects the main characteristics of his practice: examination of historical issues, references to the Western pictorial tradition, and figuration as a stylistic signature".

[7] Examining a traumatic event through an allegorical narrative, "Botelho probes Portuguese collective consciousness with sensitivity without failing to point out the political turmoil of the colonial era".