O Bastardo

Bastardo was raised in Mesquita, a city in the territory of Baixada Fluminense, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Initially working in urban languages, such as graffiti, the artist develops a direct dialogue between autobiographical issues and pictorial thought, a conquest born between family experiences and passages through art schools, such as EAV Parque Lage, in Rio de Janeiro, and Beaux-Arts in Paris.

The themes brought in their works direct us to the crossing between everyday practices of empowerment of black people and usual gestures of belonging to social groups, such as blessing or bleaching the hair. In the portrait scenes, in series such as “Pretos de grife” and “Só Lazer”, consumption, leisure and self-esteem are some of the identifications displayed by groups that are supposedly absent from this type of representation. Leisure and consumption are increasingly recurrent subjects in the works of racialized artists since history has highlighted the gestures of violence and survival as a way of insertion and denunciation against the atrocities perpetrated on the majority of the Brazilian population. O Bastardo [The Bastard] makes its own name, preceded by a definite article, a bond of subversion of its own history, maintaining the categorizing word that, in the art scene, starts to redirect the subject and alert to the practice of exoticizing the margins.

In 2023, O Bastardo became a member of the curatorial committee of the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage. Among his main exhibitions are the solo shows: “O Bastardo”, Museu de Arte do Rio – MAR, Rio de Janeiro, 2023; “Pretos de Griffe”, Casa Triângulo, São Paulo, 2021; and the group shows: “Brasil Futuro: as formas da democracia”, Museu Nacional da República, Brasília, 2023; “Quilombo: vida, problemas e aspirações do negro”, Instituto Inhotim, Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, 2022; “Histórias Brasileiras”, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand – MASP, São Paulo, 2022; “Brasil MAR Collection + Enciplopédia Negra”, Museu de Arte do Rio – MAR, Rio de Janeiro, 2022; “Contramemoria”, Theatro Municipal de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2022; “Crônicas Cariocas”, Museu de Arte do Rio – MAR, Rio de janeiro, 2021.

His works are part of national and international public collections, such as: AFRICANA Art Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland; Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand – MASP, São Paulo, Brasil; Museu de Arte do Rio – MAR, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil; Xiao Museum of Contemporary Art, Rizhao, China.

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