Diego Mouro São Bernardo, b. 1988
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Biography
"Diego, a virtuoso of line and color, does not treat his already recognized technical and formal qualities as ends in themselves. An avowed heir to the pictorial tradition mentioned at the end of the previous paragraph—which he regards as his 'strong root'—our artist seeks to tell a story, or perhaps several stories; or maybe just a few stray threads from those countless tales of Black people and their deeds—tales that could not, cannot, and will not be told, and which, for that very reason, must be told."
— Ricardo Aleixo
Diego Mouro's work originates from the traces of Afro-diasporic ancestry to construct a poetics in which gesture, memory, and spirituality intertwine. Moving between contemporary muralism and studio painting, his practice is grounded in elements of popular daily life, traditional knowledge, and ritual practices, evoking that which resists the passage of time and remains inscribed in bodies, affections, and the celebrations of the people. Anonymous figures, flower vases, religious icons, musical groups, and elements of material culture emerge in compositions marked by a sense of suspension: as if inhabiting a dimension of their own, between appearance and dissolution, between the visible and the intangible. In his works, the pictorial gesture acts as a thread connecting the past and the present, between what was forgotten and what insists on remaining. With a sensitive palette, pictorial solutions aimed at high density, and a vocabulary that crosses regionalism, the sacred, and the popular, Diego Mouro transforms painting into a territory of reconnection and reinvention — a way of affirming the permanence of the invisible, the right to subjective complexity, and the power of symbols in motion.
His solo exhibitions include: Povoada (2023, Museu Afro Brasil Emanuel Araújo, São Paulo – Brazil) and E também as flores (2024, Mitre Galeria, Belo Horizonte – Brazil). Mouro has participated in group exhibitions such as: Mães no imaginário da arte (2023, Museu Afro Brasil, São Paulo – Brazil) and Back to the City Festival (2019, Johannesburg – South Africa).
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Works
Diego Mouro São Bernardo, b. 1988
Festa no céu (Celebration in Heaven), 2026Oil on canvas85 x 138 cm
33 1/2 x 54 3/8 inCopyright The ArtistFurther images
If in Celebration on Earth the celebration takes place on the human plane, here it shifts to the spiritual realm. Around the saint are not people but horses—figures that, in...If in Celebration on Earth the celebration takes place on the human plane, here it shifts to the spiritual realm. Around the saint are not people but horses—figures that, in the artist’s poetics, represent mediators between worlds, bearers of ancestry and mystery.
The painting also dialogues with the oral narrative according to which, in the moment following the saint’s rescue, some congadeiros, upon rising from their prayers, realize that a woman is present among them in the celebration—a manifestation understood as Our Lady of the Rosary celebrating among the people.
The composition resonates with the tradition of classical and Renaissance painting, evoking scenes of ascension and celestial movement. Among the references is Raphael’s The Fall of the Rebel Angels, which inspires the circular dynamism and spatial organization of the scene.
Exhibitions
