Cássio Markowski Brazil, 1972

The Lisbon-based Brazilian artist Cássio Markowski mainly works across drawing and painting, besides exploring video and installation as means of expansion of his practice. The artist’s production encompasses a process of documentation on different socio-cultural aspects of Afro-Brazilian history. This approach relies on a constant search in archives, image databases and flea markets from where the artist collects ancient books, photographs, illustrations, newspapers, advertisements or old family albums. Markowski’s visual universe, simultaneously auto-biographic and fictional, political and poetic, theatrical and oneiric fuses his own personal memories with collective experiences and trauma, while often referencing religious iconography, especially the Brazilian syncretic version of Catholicism. 

Concerned with issues of cultural identity and almost lost traditions, Cássio Markowski’s work emphasises the tenuous remaining links between past and present. The artist’s distinctive approach intertwines a search for beauty, elegance and delicacy with concerns linked to socio-political tensions and dynamics. Through his refined and multi-layered images, which simultaneously evoke fauna and flora, historical realities, collective aspirations and inner visions, the artist sparks a renewed perception on the human relationship with nature and the living world at large, while highlighting and enhancing their aesthetic, spiritual and universal value.

Cássio Markowski completed a BA in Visual Arts in the Arts Center of the University of Santa Catarina State (Brazil) in 2007. He also completed an MA in Research and Creation (2011) and in Performing Arts and Sciences (2010) at the University of the Basque Country (Spain). After working as a scenographer and professor of performative arts in the Basque Country and as an illustrator in Poland, Markowski settled in Portugal where he entirely dedicated himself to his artistic practice. His work has been displayed in collective and individual shows in Brazil, Spain and Portugal. In 2023, Cássio was the winner of the Sovereign Portuguese Art Prize.

Available Works