Marcela Cantuária

Marcela Cantuária (1991) is a Brazilian artist who lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. She develops paintings that intertwine historical images from the universe of politics with representations of contemporary visual culture. Part of her pictorial inventions comes from her research on the struggles fought by women around the world. Cantuária elaborates narratives of confrontations with society structured in chauvinism and misogyny, and thus creates her words whose particularities are cohesive with her creative process, with her chromatic palette and with the articulations that arise from the open and latent layers of her paints.

Encouraged by Instituto Inclusartiz, in February 2022 she inaugurated the unprecedented work “The invocation of the past at the speed of now” within the ARCO circuit, Madrid International Arts Fair. Created in loco and especially for the event, the oil and acrylic painting is on display together with a video of the making of the panel, at CentroCentro, a cultural space located in the Palácio de eCibeles, seat of the City Council of the Spanish capital, where the carioca is in artistic residency.

In addition to the panel, a short documentary about the socio-environmental action carried out by the artist in Cajueiro da Praia, on the coast of Piauí, is also on display at the venue. The action, called “Murais Caju – Manatí”, conceived by Instituto Inclusartiz, invited Cantuária to paint walls and facades in the main streets of the city of Piauí to draw attention to the preservation of the manatee, a true symbol of the region. The artist shared her talent to help build a new visual identity for the city’s urban spaces, leading art workshops with the local community.

Follow the artist’s work at www.instagram.com/marcelacantuaria