Governador Valadares, MG, 1977. – Lives and works at Paulo Nazareth Arte Contemporânea, in Santa Luzia, Brazil. Represented by Galeria Mendes Wood DM.
PIPA 2016 Winner
PIPA 2016 Popular Vote Winner
PIPA 2012 and 2013 nominee.
PIPA 2017 Nominating Committee member

The body is present in all of Paulo Nazareth’s work. Over his entire trajectory, he has collected paradoxically iconoclastic iconographic readings of objects, places, alleged discourses and socio-cultural customs, executing in all his work a picturesque narrative that goes beyond ordinary techniques, seeking to place physical bodies in the exhibition space.

Born in 1977 in the city of Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais, Paulo Nazareth carries with him the baggage of a wanderer, having traveled long distances, from the village of Caiová to New York, from Miami to Mumbai, among several curious destinations. Of these experiences, one might conclude that Nazareth’s narrative signals have been lost, but no, the artist succeeds in combining different references to foster a pluralist relationship between Brazil’s aesthetic historiography and mankind’s path stretching back to its origins.

In 2012, Nazareth placed first in the MASP Visual Arts Prize. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions and group shows in Berlin, Russia and the U.S. and it can also be found in the Boros Collection (Berlin), Thyssen-Bornemisza Art (Vienna), the Pinault Collection (Paris), the Banco Itaú Collection (São Paulo), the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro, the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and the Rubbel Family Collection (Miami).