Cansado Painting

Born in 1975, Mauricio Mallet is a Brazilian visual artist who also works as a graphic designer, illustrator and art director. An arts enthusiast from an early age, he focused his training on various forms of artistic expression, having graduated in Fine and Visual Arts from important schools in Brazil. In addition to his professional work, he also teaches Fine Arts at the Escola Panamericana de Arte e Design, one of the most important artistic education institutions in São Paulo, Brazil. He mainly uses oil and acrylic on paper, cardboard, canvas... in his work he creates abstract figures outlined in a single, dominant color. Grouped together in pursuit of a common goal or isolated, his subjects come together in a form of ghostly camaraderie, gathered at the top of a slide or hugging each other as they walk. Given the proximity to each other, the ease with which they coexist and the playground equipment, these children look like teenagers, not yet in the awkward phase of adolescent discomfort, gender awareness, repulsion and desire. They exist freely, without pretense, in the company of other people. The paintings are a reminder of a shared past and barriers built seemingly overnight. Often leaving a boundary around his work, he reminds his viewers that art is a construction, a form of control that seems at odds with the content of his work. Perhaps the freedom of an idyllic childhood, the ability to love and care without question, is a myth, an illusory past invented by a self-deceiving public in search of a better self. Perhaps memory is as treacherous as Magritte's pipe, an unreality that has as little to do with the past as the painting of a pipe has to do with the pipe itself. Or perhaps the image was the truth and the analysis was self-deception.