Artist, designer and creative director based in São Paulo, Brazil, Rafaela Mascaro’s practice lies at the intersection of artistic creation in the digital realm, design, animation and speculative fiction. Her work explores the relationships between identity, technology, memory and human behaviour through colourful and distinctive visual worlds, blending digital illustration, 3D, animation and artificial intelligence.
Her practice draws inspiration from human behaviour, internet culture, science fiction, philosophy, early digital aesthetics and the visual utopias of the 20th century. She also draws inspiration from major figures in modern and contemporary painting such as Matisse, David Hockney, Rothko, Willem de Kooning and Joan Mitchell.
Populated by recurring characters known as “Gang Friends”, her works, both playful and unsettling, explore with humour and sensitivity the notions of belonging, social connection, identity, technology and the future. Playing on ambiguity and visual metaphor, they invite the audience to project their own narratives and emotions.
She also develops her practice under the name Studio Grand Père, an alias paying tribute to her maternal grandfather Osvaldo. Her works have been exhibited internationally, notably in Europe, the United States, Australia, and more recently in Hong Kong at Art Basel.
