With his paintings and charcoal drawings, the Brazilian visual artist tells us his own fables based on cultural, religious and spiritual stories revered in Africa and Latin America.

Gustavo Nazareno's works catch the eye. This 30-year-old self-taught prodigy, who has lived in São Paulo for seven years, already has all the makings of a master. His oil paintings and charcoal drawings draw on multiple influences from the arts. He draws inspiration from Afro-Latin mythologies and religious traditions (Candomblé, Umbanda, Santería, Voodoo), the spiritual beliefs of the Orixás (or Orishas) deities from Africa, Renaissance and Baroque iconography (Caravaggio) and the aesthetics of fashion and haute couture photography.

His enigmatic images depict scenes from his own imagined fables, playing on the blurred boundary between faith, fiction and research. In his practice, Gustavo Nazareno uses chiaroscuro techniques, textile art and scenography. He draws sketches that he recreates as tableaux vivants by dressing miniature wooden mannequins.
This preliminary work serves as a reference for his visual representations. For this dramatic rendering of light and shadow, he works by candlelight in his studio, applying coal dust to the paper and tapping it with his fingertips.

BETWEEN AMBIGUITY AND DUALITY

His visual universe thus questions the tensions and similarities "between fact and fiction, good and evil, God and man", probing the encounters and connections between human figures and divinities. His works reveal themselves in portraits of figures dressed in majestic robes and ornaments, depicted in haughty poses. The reference to fashion photography lends a sense of contemporaneity, imbuing "clothes with transcendental resonance".

This superb series, entitled Orixás: Personal Tales on Portraiture, was presented in his first solo show at London's Opera Gallery last November. "In this new body of work, Gustavo reminds us of the importance of finding ourselves in a personal sense of divinity, giving form to a pantheon of Orixás whose posture and presence embody and celebrate the visual syncretism of Candomblé. I believe that living in the shadow of today's world events calls for a growing need for spiritual anchorage, and Gustavo, in the intimacy of his own studio, paints the return of the gaze to an inner dimension", explained curator Samuele Visentin.
Gustavo Nazareno is an emerging talent to be followed closely. While he has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in Brazil and across Europe, in spring 2026, his work will be presented at the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center in Chicago.

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