Thiago Martins de Melo develops studies in the field of painting, presenting polysemic and densely narrative discussions through his work. The visual nature of his work is fundamental. Martins de Melo’s practice is situated in a revisionary tense: it refers to cultural memory via a medium endowed with historicity, i.e. painting, and contemporaneously reinvents historical characters, culturally diverse populations and Brazil’s spiritual, peasant, mythical, indigenous and African entities. These characters are called upon to return to the battle ground on the artist’s canvases, conveying their struggle and their history.
In the mix of cosmogony and cosmology which arises from Thiago Martins de Melo’s painting, strong gestures, vibrant colors and intense scenes invest us with a violent, inescapable sense of urgency and transformation. Through complex schemes, marked by several layers of symbolism, themes such as body image, sexuality, social turmoils and political convulsions are communicated in a vertiginous speed, forming a whirlwind of multiple anachronisms which combine autobiographical scenes from the artist’s domestic life and public events belonging Brazilian history – both those stamped in the country’s social imaginary as well as those programmatically neglected from it.
In his large-scale canvases – which often develop beyond the bidimensional realm, through video and sculptural installations – we see diverse folks and spiritual entities in the battlefield, claiming their histories when facing wars, tormentors and icons appropriated by the biopower structures of western society. In this sense, the artist hopes to point out the existing fractures in the times and truth regimes which encompass them, opening up space so that these cultural manifestations – violated every day day-by-day by genocides and epistemicides – rise to the surface in an oniric and idealized sparkle, capable of blowing the universal and continuous force of resistance, insurgency, revolt and revolution.
Thiago Martins de Melo (São Luis, 1981) lives and works in São Luis and Campinas. He has participated in countless group exhibitions, including “The World is Made of Stories,” Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2015/2016); “Imagine Brazil”, DHC/Art Foundation For Contemporary Art, Montreal (2015/2016); “The Boiling Point” PSM-Gallery, Berlin (2015); the 31st São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo (2014); “Meanwhile… Suddenly, and Then,” the 12th Lyon Biennial, Lyon (2013); “Os Primeiros 10 Anos” [“The First 10 Years”], Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2011). His solo shows include “Teatro Nagô-cartesiano e o Corte Azimutal do Mundo,” Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2013) and “Thiago Martins de Melo,” Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2011).
His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna; the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo; the Rubell Family Collection, Miami; the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro – Gilberto Chateaubriand Collection; the Museum of Art of Rio, Rio de Janeiro; the Museum of Contemporary Art of Ceará, Fortaleza and the Museum of the State of Pará, Belém.
Education
2008
– MA Psychology: Behavioral Theory and Research, UFPA, Belém, Brazil
2005
– BA, Psychology, UNICEUMA, Sao Luis, Brazil
Solo Exhibitions
2016
– “bárbaro barroco”, Gamma Galeria, Guadalajara, Mexico
– “bárbara balaclava”, Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife, Brazil
– “bárbara balaclava”, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, Brazil
2013
– “Teatro Nagô-cartesiano e o Corte Azimutal do Mundo”, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, Brazil
2011
– “Thiago Martins de Melo”, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, Brazil
2010
– Exhibition Program at Centro Cultural São Paulo, Centro Cultural São Paulo, Brazil
Group Exhibitions
2018
– “Verzuimd Braziel – Brasil Desamparado”, CNI SESI SENAI Marcantonio Vilaça Prize for the plastical Arts, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Goiás, Goiânia, Brazil
– “/Simultâneos/”, MAC-CE – Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil
2017
– “Os três cavaleiros do apocalipse”, Gamma Galeria, Guadalajara, Mexico
– “Travessia 5: Emergência”, Galpão Bela Maré, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– 6th Marcantonio Vilaça Prize, MuBE – Museu Brasileiro da Escultura e Ecologia, São Paulo, Brazil
– “Queermuseu – Cartografias da diferença na América Latina”, Santander Cultural, Porto Alegre, Brazil
– Dobra-Festival Internacional de Cinema Experimental, Cinemateca do MAM, Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “L’île aux mythes / Souvenir de Mwene Mutapa – Cartographie exotique d’une collection”, École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Bourges, Bourges, France
– “South-South: Let me begin again”, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
– “A luz que vela o corpo é a mesma que revela a tela”, Caixa Cultural Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2016
– “Contemporary Brazilian Art from the Rubell Family Collection”, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, US
– “Documentos da barbárie”, 8º semana dos realizadores, Espaço Itaú de Cinema, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “Orixás”, Casa França–Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “Adornos do Brasil Indígena: resistências contemporâneas”, Sesc-Pinheiros, São Paulo, Brazil
– “Os muitos e o um: arte contemporânea brasileira”, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil
– “A Cor do Brasil”, MAR – Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– “Soft Power. Arte Brasil”, Kunsthal Kade, Amersfoort, Holland
– Dakar Biennale , Dakar, Senegal
– “Histórias da Infância”, MASP, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
2015
– “The World is Made of Stories”, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway
– “Imagine Brazil”, DHC/Art Foundation For Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada
– “10º Bienal do Mercosul – Mensagem de Uma Nova América”, Porto Alegre, Brazil
– “1ª Bienal Internacional de Assunção – Grito de Libertad”, Asucion, Paraguai
– “O Ponto de Ebulição”, PSM-Gallery, Berlim, Germany
– “The Poetry In Between: South-South”, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
– “Here There” (Huna Hunak), QM Gallery Al Riwaq, Doha, Qatar
2014
– “Como (…) coisas que não existem”, 31º Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil
– “Imagine Brazil” – Musée D’art Contemporain de Lyon, França
2013
– “Chambres à Part, Edition VIII”, La Réserve Paris, paris, France
– “Entre-temps… Brusquement, et ensuite”, 12e Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France
2012
– “To be with art is all we ask”, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway
2011
– “Os Primeiros 10 Anos”, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Grants and Prizes
2016
– Best Picture, Best Art Direction and Best Edition for “Bárbara Balaclava”, 8º Festival Maranhão na Tela, São Luís, Brazil
2011
– Funarte Prize for Contemporary Arts, 2011, Brazil
2009
– Acquisition Prize, Arte Pará 2009, Fundação Rômulo Maiorana, Belém, Brazil
2008
– Main Prize, Arte Pará 2008, Fundação Rômulo Maiorana, Belém, Brazil
Selected Collections
– Rubell Family Collection, Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami, US
– MASP – Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
– MAR -Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria
– MAM – Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway
– Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand, MAM, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– ICA – Miami, Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, US
– PAMM- Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, US
– Colección Diéresis, Guadalajara, Mexico
– Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil
– IAGO – Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico
– Centro Cultural Banco do Nordeste, Fortaleza, Brazil
– Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife, Brazil
