Paulo Nimer Pjota, Duplo, 2025. © Paulo Nimer Pjota.
Image courtesy Maureen Paley, London and Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo. Photo by Gui Gomes.
Paulo Nimer Pjota is a Brazilian artist who predominantly works in oil, tempera and acrylic on canvas. His large-scale paintings draw on art history, popular culture, mythology and folk tales, merging multiple references to create new, imaginary scenarios. His approach borrows from the sampling and remixing practices adopted in Brazilian hip-hop and rap music, as well as on his experience as a graffiti artist as a teenager.
This exhibition in the Main Gallery showcases a new series of paintings against an expansive mural painted directly onto the gallery walls. Magical environments are populated by mythical characters, animals and imaginary beasts. The sun, stars and moon are recurring motifs in Pjota’s practice, as are vases, shells and other vessels, often brimming with flowers and plants. The presence of music is also implied, with a three-headed beast in one work playing the trumpet, horn, drum and sax all at the same time.
Bringing together disparate elements from the past, present and an imaginary world, Pjota introduces us to a new universe where established ideas of value are dismantled and redefined, making way for an alternative future. Unlike a story book in which a clear narrative unfolds, Pjota’s works leave the viewer to make their own sense of his fantastical scenes.
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Paulo Nimer Pjota Biography
Paulo Nimer Pjota (b. 1988, São José do Rio Preto, Brazil) lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. Recent solo exhibitions include Na Boca do Sol II at François Ghebaly, Los Angeles (2026); A Lua e Eu (The Moon and I) at Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam; Os alquimistas estão chegando at Mendes Wood DM, Paris (2025); and Na Boca do Sol at Mendes Wood DM, New York (2024); Do cômico e do trágico at Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2023); Every Empire Breaks Like a Vase at François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, and Maureen Paley & Studio M, London (both 2022), as well as at The Power Station, Dallas (2021). His work has been included in institutional group exhibitions such as 1981/2021: arte contemporânea brasileira at CCBB, Rio de Janeiro (2021); Images that don’t conform at Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro (2021); Trouble in Paradise at Kunsthal Rotterdam (2019); Sea of Desire at Fondation Carmignac, Porquerolles (2018).
Paulo Nimer Pjota: Encantados is generously supported by:
Maureen Paley, London; Mendes Wood DM, Sao Paulo, Brussels, Paris, New York; François Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles and New York