Marcos Galdino is a 52-year-old multi-artist from São Paulo who has lived in Aracaju, Sergipe, since 2018. Autistic, self-taught, and recognized for his versatility, he moves through the visual arts, photography, theater, music, cinema, and dance, bringing the singularity of his perspective to every work. In the visual arts, after years of experimentation and creative maturation, he developed his own style using techniques that combine pigments, resins, oil, and water to create unique textures and effects.
At the end of this year, Galdino presents his newest series of paintings, "Inconsciente" (Unconscious). These are near-abstract, sensory works that provide individual perceptions of images and situations based on universal themes such as oppression, freedom, religion, traditions, and taboos. They connect past, present, and future, frequently featuring women as protagonists to highlight their strength and symbolism.
How did your journey into the art world begin?
When I was three years old, my father bought a toy piano and noticed that I could play the little songs I heard on it. So, he found a way for me to have access to a piano at a club neighboring our house. That was how I began developing my creativity through music.
In school, having access to drawing materials, I reproduced the cartoon characters I liked. But I only experimented with paint on canvas for the first time in my early twenties, when I was curious enough to buy materials and try something. However, as I am always curious and research-oriented, I spent more time performing chemical experiments with smears on the canvas than actually painting (laughs)! Today, I use Instagram as my virtual gallery. Everything I produce, I post there.
How would you describe your artistic style?
I developed my own style when I realized that I like outlines. But the most important thing was learning through practice that the work itself tells you how it wants to be made; if you don't have the sensitivity to perceive that, you'll be fighting against it. Your work will stop being art and become just an ordinary painting.
What themes do you prefer to explore in your works?
I have already explored the pornographic, the erotic, the religious, politics, capitalism, and so on. I suffered a lot by "releasing my beasts" and forcing the world to swallow everything I did. It took many years to mature into what I am now. After so much discipline to understand the simple and the plain—which I used to insist on complicating—I learned to respect the unconscious, to respect what the work wants and how it wants to be reproduced. Now I tackle diverse themes that my mind releases.
In this new series, "Inconsciente," I have been addressing how humans adapt to everything, whether in peace, luxury, war, or misery. I have been focusing quite a bit on the female point of view: women within taboos, religion, traditions, reproduction, freedom, strength, resilience, etc., in a universe of past, present, and future.
What is your creative process like?
Since I am now very disciplined by my mind and relaxed—free from commitments and obligations—I allow myself to make sketches (which I used to reject). I then allow myself to be carried away by the shapes. Since I have the "advantage" of seeing the entire work finished in my head—at least enough to know which materials and techniques to use—I paint while talking to the work, always doing what it wants. It always shows me through various signs. Of course, it is my unconscious; that’s why the series has that name!
What are your sources of inspiration?
None. I am level one autistic (support), though I’ve gone through more severe phases that would be level two. Additionally, I have high abilities/giftedness (SD/AH), so my mind doesn't stop. My brain doesn't give me a break—or there is no break! I think all the time without stopping. Therefore, there is no inspiration, or rather, there is too much inspiration to the point where I cannot identify it.
What materials and techniques do you use most often?
Think of a "Gyro Gearloose" (Professor Pardal) who is constantly making inventions and experiments! That’s me. I live to break the rules of chemistry and physics; I mix what shouldn't be mixed until it works. So, I’ve reached a point where I can pigment very vivid colors, use watercolors where it’s "forbidden," and smudge what shouldn't be smudged. In short, I am a rebellious transgressor who managed to develop his own techniques.
Who are the artistic influences that have impacted your work?
Miró and the "lazy" phase of Picasso. I say that all of Miró's works are erotic, with explicit sex—more anal than vaginal. But that’s a long conversation for another time! Picasso realized that not following rules is what counts; he stopped being a detail-oriented painter, especially when people started paying fortunes for his works. The hypocrisy of people led Picasso to play with that; he is a great genius who devoured the bourgeoisie while still alive, and continues to do so after his death!
What is the meaning of art in your life?
In my case, it is an expurgation, as well as a cry, a protest, and a conversation. For those who are not artists, art is a relief, a battery recharger, a change of place, of concepts, and a maturation of opinions. It is a moment of climax, pleasure, and emotion...
Art is that relief you feel when you sit in the bathroom after a great struggle, and the artist is the guy who prepares that bathroom—leaving it clean, smelling good, and extremely pleasant. Because of this, in this new series, in addition to the original canvases, I decided to make prints of them with limited reproductions, signed individually, with the goal of making the works more accessible—reducing costs as much as possible and expanding the possibility of acquisition for all audiences. I can reproduce, number, and sign authenticated prints on fabric, paper, etc.
