Mario Henrique de Moraes (b. 1970, Camanducaia, Minas Gerais) is a visual artist who lives between Itatiba and the São Paulo coast.
After more than three decades developing furniture and surfaces, he turned his practice to building wood panels and investigating processes of metal oxidation. Each support is conceived and made in his own studio, so that building the work is inseparable from its language.
His research investigates the relationship between matter, time and transformation, working iron, copper, brass and carbon into surfaces where the image is not applied but emerges from the reactions between the materials. Rather than represent matter, his work conducts its natural processes, letting corrosion, oxidation and time take part in building the work.
Matter is conducted, not reproduced.
Chronology
- 1970Born in Camanducaia, Minas Gerais, where he spends his childhood on the family farm.
- 1988Moves to Itatiba, in the interior of São Paulo.
- 1994Marries Silvana Cecílio; together they found Silvana Cecílio, a furniture and interiors brand. For more than three decades he develops furniture, surfaces and built solutions in wood.
- 2025Sets up his own marcenaria in Itatiba and begins building by hand every panel that will support his artistic work.
- 2026Begins the series Lavra (I–IX) and Brasa (I–III), deepening his research into copper, iron, brass and oxidation as a pictorial language.