Marcelo Macedo and Mateu Velasco "Fresh from Rio"

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poster for Marcelo Macedo and Mateu Velasco "Fresh from Rio"

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Marcelo Macedo (aka Mack Viralata), native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was born in 1983. Early on, Marcelo sought a world closer to his subconscious, an intuitive side always looking for greater connection with the spiritual, closer to nature than the body of man. His work depicts motifs of animals, plants and minerals, spiritual guides, symbols and numbers in a careful blend and balance using a delicate personal finish. Marcelo usually takes his drawings to the streets, which in turn, provides materials for the construction of new pieces: paper, wood, discarded objects gain new life and meaning. Undeniably to improvise and to sustain go together, everything communicates and becomes its own private universe. Reflected in his work is the concern of the speed and consumerism of modern man.

Mateu Velasco was born in 1980, in New York, but moved to Brazil shortly thereafter — he considers himself more Brazilian than American. He graduated from the Arts and Design Department of the PUC-Rio University in 2003, majoring in industrial design. Having attended carving, illustration, computer graphics and experimental calligraphy courses, Mateu developed a unique style of street art which can be found in walls and galleries of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre, Paris and Lisbon. Mateu’s work discusses the art’s democratization by converting the public space into an aesthetic space. Mateu’s art reveals a reality we live in, but do not notice, stimulating our memory and sensibility through its critical and conceptual poetics. Rich in references of the daily urban experience, his graffiti denotes the persistent need of the city’s humanization. The tentacles, recurrent icon in Mateu’ s work, capture the viewers and transports them to a black and white world, of layered illustrative signs taken from elements of the real world: stamps, lettering, manuscripts, drops, clouds, flowers. With graffiti going through a phase of renewal and invigoration, graphic artists like Mateu have become much more experimental. The crossing of the street art graphical language with the world of commercial publicity has resulted in an enormous growth in graphic design. This has allowed Mateu to impact the visual repertoire of many work areas: patterns, panels and shop windows, as well as in the editorial segment (magazines, book covers, etc.) Mateu developed projects for brands such as Ambev, Endesa, Nike, Converse, Cantão, Totem, Spoleto, Brasil Telecom, Rede Globo, W/Brasil, among many others. Always connecting his artistic production to graphic design, in which there are no limits between different techniques, Mateu reaffirms the nature of drawing as a mark, an inscription in the world. Among his exhibitions, Mateu has worked with some of the best modern art galleries in Rio de Janeiro like Galpao Helio Pelegrino (2000), Casa da Matriz (2001), Solar Grandjean de Montigny (2002/2003), Centro Cultural Carioca (2006), Paco Imperial (2007) and Tocayo – Parque Lage, as a group shows and Temos Espaco (2007) and Galeria Movimento (2009 and 2011) as an individual show.

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Schedule

from July 29, 2011 to September 23, 2011

Opening Reception on 2011-07-29 from 18:00 to 21:00

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