Visual artist with a master’s degree in Psychology, Thiago Martins de Melo works with painting, sculpture, installation, and animation. His visual language combines different media in visually dense compositions, with emphasis on the materiality of painting. Using painting as a starting point, his canvases, or objects — usually of large dimensions — narrate battles, syncretic rites and epiphanies, approaching the genre of historical painting and collage. Moving between expressionist and realist techniques, his works incorporate volume, combat objects, mass circulation products, and moving images. The artist composes a meta-narrative scheme in which episodes of anti-colonial struggles are depicted with references to the cultural industry and art history. The brutalism of the gesture condenses distinct techniques and visualities, rendering the immediate perception of mythical figures and scenes opaque.

Among his main solo exhibitions are: Cosmogonia Colérica, curated by Germano Dushá, Fundação da Memória Republicana Brasileira – Convento das Mercês and Chão SLZ, São Luís, Brazil (2025); Revoluciones en Relieve: Nuevas Obras de Thiago Martins de Melo, curated by Royce W. Smith and Jorge Antonio Fernández Torres, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes/Arte Universal, Havana, Cuba (2024); Resistência, curated by Gunnar B. Kvaran, Fundação Iberê Camargo, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2023); Necrobrasiliana, curated by Denise Mattar, Museu Nacional da República, Brasília, Brazil (2019); Bárbara balaclava, curated by Moacir dos Anjos, Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife, Brazil (2016). 

Martins de Melo has also participated in group shows in Brazil and abroad, such as: Adiar o fim do mundo, FGV Arte, Rio de Janeiro (2025); Amazônia Açu, Americas Society – AS/COA, New York, USA (2025); 1st Bienal das Amazônias, Bubuia: Águas como fonte de imaginações e desejos,  Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín – MAMM, Colombia (2025), Chão SLZ, Maranhão, Brazil (2024), and Centro Cultural Bienal das Amazônias, Belém, Brazil (2023); 8th Borås Art Biennial, Layers, Loops, Lines, Borås Art Museum, Sweden (2024); 38th Panorama da Arte Brasileira: Mil graus, MAC-USP, São Paulo, Brazil (2024); Remedios: Where new land might grow, C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Cordoba, Spain (2023); Atos de Revolta: outros imaginários sobre independência, Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro – MAM Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2022); 3 Frestas – Trienal de Artes, O rio é uma serpente, SESC Sorocaba, Sorocaba, Brazil (2021); Queermuseu – Cartografias da diferença na América Latina, Santander Cultural, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2017); 20th Festival de Arte Contemporânea Sesc_Videobrasil, São Paulo, Brazil (2017); 12th Biennale de Dakar, The City in the Blue Daylight, Dakar, Senegal (2016); New Shamans: Contemporary Brazilian Arts from the Rubell Family Collection, Rubell Museum, Miami, USA (2016); Soft Power: Arte Brasil, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, Netherlands (2016); Histórias da Infância, MASP, São Paulo, Brazil (2016); 10th Bienal do Mercosul, Mensagem de Uma Nova América, Santander Cultural, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2015); Imagine Brazil, DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada, and Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil (both in 2015), Musée D’art Contemporain de Lyon, France (2014), and Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, Norway (2013); 31st Bienal de São Paulo, Como (…) coisas que não existem, Pavilhão da Bienal, São Paulo, Brazil (2014); 12e Biennale de Lyon, Entre-temps… Brusquement, et ensuite, Musée D’Art Contemporain, France (2013). 

His works are part of the permanent collections of: ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway; Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife, Brazil; Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca – IAGO, Oaxaca, Mexico; Institute of Contemporary Art – ICA Miami, Miami, USA; Ilmin Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea;  Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo – MAC USP, São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro – MAM Rio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Museu de Arte do Rio – MAR, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; MASP, São Paulo, Brazil; Museu Nacional de Belas Artes – MNBA, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes/Arte Universal, Havana, Cuba; Pérez Art Museum Miami – PAMM, Miami, USA; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil; Rubell Museum, Miami, USA; TBA21 – Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria; among others.