7 contemporary Brazilian artists

7 contemporary Brazilian artists: photos, illustrations, sculptures, murals...
From a very long list of Brazilian artists, we only chose seven. All of them are alive and have made art inside and outside their country, and they carry the flag with pride. There are illustrators, conceptual artists, visual artists, those who make portraits with chocolate or who find beauty in trash, how many did we miss?

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CILDO MEIRELES - CONCEPTUAL ARTIST

Cildo Meireles in front of Entrevendo, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

No list could leave out Meireles, a fundamental part of the Brazilian artistic avant-garde of the post-war period. He has been defined as a link between the neo-concretism of the 1950s and the conceptual art of the late 1960s.

"He rejects the extreme rationalism of geometric abstraction to create more sensorial and participatory works, which appeal not only to the mind, but also to the body. The utopian optimism of this movement collapsed after the coup d'état of 1964, which opened the way to a dictatorial military regime, and which marked a new generation of artists: that of Cildo Meireles, whose works have a greater political commitment as a reflection of the historical context," can be read on the website of the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), where the artist, born in Rio de Janeiro in 1948, was the inaugural exhibitor in 2009.

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CÁSSIO VASCONCELLOS - PHOTOGRAPHER

Photo: instagram (Cássio Vasconcellos)
The photographer in his selfie session with a portrait of the Rolling Stones. English:Photo: Instagram (Cássio Vasconcellos)

Famous for his aerial shots, the São Paulo-born photographer has been working in photography since 1981, during which time he has exhibited his work in 20 different countries.

In his images he criticizes consumerism, the predominance of motor vehicles and the chaos in the globalized world.

He has published several books with his work, such as Panorâmicas in 2012, Aéreas in 2010 and Noturnos São Paulo in 2002.
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ADRIANA VAREJÃO

A photograph with her daughter Catalina. Photo: Facebook (Adriana Varejão Atelier)

One of the most important representatives of contemporary art is this woman born in Rio de Janeiro, who is mainly dedicated to painting, sculpture, photography and installations.

His work has been shown in important international venues such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), the Cartier Foundation in Paris and the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.

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ERNESTO NETO

The artist Ernesto Neto. Image: Wikimedia Commons

You may remember him for filling the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso with what looked like multiform flour sacks. It was his retrospective and interactive exhibition "Ernesto's Tongue", where he showed works from 1987 to 2011, in which the artist oscillated between sculpture and installation.

"Ernesto Neto's work can be smelled, felt, touched, used, crossed, penetrated. All the viewer's senses are magnified and come to the surface through the large installations, becoming an unrepeatable experience," they wrote about him on the Museo de San Ildefonso website.

From his exhibition "El cuerpo que me lleva" in 2014. Photo: Guggenheim-bilbao.es

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EDUARDO KOBRA - URBAN ARTIST

Photo: eduardokobra.com/

We cannot leave out urban art, that which turns any wall into an oil painting to capture its creations. The most recognized of them, which of course is not the only one, is Kobra, with his large murals, 3D paintings on the floor that have made more than one person fall, and colors and geometry everywhere.

Since his first projects, Kobra sought to transform the urban landscape of his hometown of São Paulo and also to give social criticism and a position against animal abuse, environmental deterioration and against bullfighting.

One of his murals. Photo: Photo: eduardokobra.com

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BUTCHER BILLY - ILLUSTRATOR

Photo: Facebook (Billy Mariano da Luz)

The "butcher" Billy or Billy Mariano da Luz is a new generation illustrator who, immersed in popular culture, mixes the world of comics with that of music and cinema, and sometimes even with politics.
He is a designer who currently resides in Brazil, where he leads a double life very similar to the characters he portrays. During the day he is an ordinary human being who works as creative director of the creative agency Pontocom Comunicação Interativa and at night, he becomes Butcher Billy, the artist who dared to turn Morrissey into the new Superman and embody the Green Goblin in Osama Bin Laden.

See more of his work here.

Photo: Facebook (Butcher Billy)

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VIK MUNIZ - VISUAL ARTIST

A self-portrait. Photo: Special Vik Muniz

Muniz was born in São Paulo but currently divides his life and work between New York City and Rio de Janeiro. He is a visual artist well known for his "paintings" made with chocolate and portraits made with small pieces of paper.

In addition, he uses pieces by other artists as a basis to recreate them with other materials, such as jam, beans or noodle soup.