Raul Mourão was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1967. He studied at the School of Visual Arts in Parque Lage and has been exhibiting his work — that includes the production of drawings, prints, paintings, sculptures, videos, photographs, texts, installations and performances — since 1991. He currently lives and works between Rio de Janeiro and New York, where he maintains a studio in Harlem and also takes part in a residency program at Mana Contemporary, in New Jersey.
Built in various materials, his works relate to both fictional and documental commentaries. On the one hand are pure creations, conceived from and around fantasy; on the other hand are pieces derived from his observations of the real: cities, soccer, politics, a bohemian lifestyle.
Still in the 1980's, Mourão started taking the photographs of a urban element that became key to his research on the following decades: the security bars commonly used to protect properties in Rio de Janeiro. From those images emerged the series “Grades” (“Bars”), that prevails in his work to date. In the 2000's, his investigation took a new path: kineptic sculptures set in motion by the spectator's touch.
Raul Mourão has been exhibiting his work worldwide since the 1990's, but is also praised for his involvement with the Brazilian art scene in a bigger sense. As a curator and producer, the artist organized solo exhibitions of artists Fernanda Gomes, Cabelo, Tatiana Grinberg, Brigida Baltar and João Modé, among others, as well as the group exhibitions “Travessias 2” (Galpão Bela Maré, Rio de Janeiro), Love’s House (Hotel Love’s House, Rio de Janeiro) and “Outra coisa” (Museu Vale, Vila Velha). He was also the editor of the magazines “Carioca” and “Item”.
Along with Eduardo Coimbra, Luiza Mello and Ricardo Basbaum, Mourão created and directed the gallery Agora, in the neighborhood of Lapa, Rio de Janeiro, between 2000 and 2002. Currently, he is the editorial director of the crossmedia platform Jacaranda, co founded with fellow artists Carlos Vergara and José Bechara in 2014. The platform is compounded of “Jacaranda”, a quarterly magazine about Brazilian art published in English and distributed internationally; an exhibiting space located in Rio de Janeiro; and the production and commercialization of series of works both by newcomers and celebrated Brazilian artists, who ultimately finance the operation.
The artist has published three books to date: “ARTEBRA” (Casa da Palavra, 2005); “MOV” (Automatica Editions, 2011); and “Volume 1” (Automatica Editions, 2015).