Exhibition by Maranhão artist celebrates Latin American and ancestral identity

One of the rising names of the new wave of Brazilian visual artists, about to turn 44, Maranhão-born Thiago Martins de Melo opened his first solo exhibition this week in São Luís.

The collection—titled Cosmogonia Choérica—brings together 21 works produced between 2013 and 2025. It occupies rooms in the Convento das Mercês and the Espaço Cultural Chão SLZ, located in the Historic Center of São Luís.

Curated by Germano Dushá—one of the curators of the latest Panorama of Brazilian Art at the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo—the exhibition encompasses a multiplicity of artistic expressions, including large-scale paintings, sculptures, prints, experimental videos, and installations by Thiago, moving between expressionist and realist techniques.

Germano highlights some aspects considered in the process of selecting the pieces for the exhibition that embody the artist's identity. He says that "the idea was not exactly to create a chronological exhibition, but rather to capture a common thread, to synthesize the main spiritual, political, and aesthetic axes of Thiago's career. I think the core of the work is precisely this profusion of languages, forms, and themes. And this title—Cosmogonia Choérica—talks a lot about creations, the creation of the world, and genesis, but always with great force, energy, and charge," he argues.

The works bring together history, politics, mysticism, and spirituality. The title Cosmogonia Choérica points to this combination of creation and fury, between genesis and confrontation, materializing battles, syncretic rites, and epiphanies.

Vocabulary
"People who may never have heard of Thiago and who may not be so familiar with the field of contemporary art. I think he offers a wealth of thematic, conceptual, visual, and formal depth, but he can have a very open, very popular dimension. I think it's a work with a strong visual impact, which presents very clear, very powerful images." [Something that] manages to encompass figurative and abstract questions, more conceptual and more direct, clearer, even literal, in a very sensitive, very unique way. In a very unique way. And he's an artist with such a rich vocabulary, repertoire, and universe, and who is always addressing human issues,” he emphasizes.
Thiago says that the choices of themes addressed in his work transform his identity, experiences, and visual references, as well as literary research on subjects he wants to materialize in his works.

The artist says that “I see my work from the place where I was born; my identity is rooted in Latin America, in the light, the colors, the struggles, and the respect for ancestry. We are a mestizo people, so many spiritual, mythical, and legendary narratives are fusions of European, Indigenous, and African narratives, with the same stories told in different ways in many regions. I was also heavily influenced by hermetic iconography and alchemy, as well as the tarot.”

Artistic Background
Born in 1981 in São Luís, Maranhão, the artist lives and works between São Luís, São Paulo, and Guadalajara, Mexico. He has had solo exhibitions in several Brazilian cities, including the Iberê Camargo Foundation in Porto Alegre; the National Museum of the Republic in Brasília; the São Paulo Cultural Center in São Paulo; and the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation in Recife.

He has also participated in dozens of group exhibitions in Brazil and abroad, notably the Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre, the 31st São Paulo Biennial, the first Amazon Biennial, the Lyon Biennial in France, and the 12th Dakar Biennial in Senegal, among others.

His works are part of permanent collections in museums focused on contemporary art in cities such as Miami, Oslo (Fearnley Museum of Modern Art), MASP, and the Pinacoteca in São Paulo; and the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro.

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