Rodrigo Matheus
1974 —
Rodrigo Matheus
São Paulo, 1974.
Rodrigo Matheus holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of São Paulo and a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the Royal College of Arts in London. His work is characterized by the use of objects from industrial and corporate everyday life, repositioned in ways that generate new meanings and layers of interpretation.
The artist’s practice encompasses sculptures, assemblages and installations built from materials such as hardware, fishing equipment and other technical instruments, kept in their original state without direct intervention on the matter. These industrially sourced elements engage in dialogue with organic components — fabrics, branches, wool — resulting in compositions that articulate volumes and create tension within space. His body of work proposes a reflection on the mechanisms of control embedded in contemporary design and consumer objects, questioning the models of life shaped by mass production.
Among group exhibitions, Matheus has participated in shows at institutions such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (“ON/OFF”), the Palais de Tokyo, also in Paris (“Le Parfait Flâneur”), and the 10th Bienal do Mercosul. He also took part in “A Máquina do Mundo: Art and Industry in Brazil 1901–2021” at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2021); “1981–2021 Brazilian Contemporary Art from the Andrea and José Olympio Collection” at the CCBB, Rio de Janeiro (2021); “Cities in Dust” at Carpintaria, Rio de Janeiro (2020); and “Passado/Futuro/Presente – Brazilian Contemporary Art from the MAM Collection” at MAM Rio de Janeiro (2019). In 2019, he held the solo exhibition “A Blow Through The Gap” at the Ghisla Art Foundation Collection in Locarno, Switzerland.
His works are held in the collections of leading institutions in Brazil and abroad, including Instituto Inhotim, Brumadinho; Instituto Figueiredo Ferraz, Ribeirão Preto; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo; MAM – Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo; MAM – Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro; Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte; macLYON, Lyon; Collection Lea Weingarten, Houston; and the Tiroche DeLeon Collection, Gibraltar.






