Mario Henrique de Moraes was born in 1970 in Camanducaia, a small town in the Serra da Mantiqueira range of southern Minas Gerais. He was raised on a farm. His childhood was lived outdoors. Horses, the river, the forest behind the house, with the schooling the region offered.

At 18 he moved to Itatiba, in the interior of São Paulo. There he met Silvana Cecílio. They married and, together, built Silvana Cecílio, a furniture and interiors brand that became a reference for rustic-refined design in Brazil, furnishing the country houses of leading Brazilian collectors and the homes of major entrepreneurs across the country. For more than three decades, until the end of 2025, Moraes led product development, sourcing, and design curation for the brand. He learned to look at a chair, a piece of wood, a room, with very few words.

In late 2025 he set up his own marcenaria at the atelier in Itatiba and began building his own wood panels. In 2026 he began applying copper, iron, and brass to those panels in successive oxidation cycles. The method is his own, arrived at by trial and error. The surfaces carry the colors of the places that formed him. The red earth of Minas, the green of the Mantiqueira, the rust and salt of the São Paulo coast.

He lives and works between Itatiba, Camanducaia, and the São Paulo coast. Lavra (I–IX) and Brasa (I–III) form his first cohesive body of work as a visual artist.