Zé Tepedino lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. Using techniques such as sewing, painting and assemblage, his work ranges from sculpture to mon- umental installations and performance art, expanding the scale of his po- etics. His research revolves around the banal, organizing materials, colors, and shapes in space, creating new arrangements and situations.
Zé Tepedino’s work reveals a playful operating system that redefines the con- tours of his environment. In an attempt to recreate the salted memories that permeate his life and work experience in Brazil, trailing on the margin of the world, the artist gathers found objects, exposing an attentive gaze for what is not visible at first sight, for what is supposedly disappearing. Dislocating these scavenged residues from their initial function and providing them with new meanings; sorting out volumes, shapes and hues, playing fluidly with the materials’ density, the artist cancels the underlying tension between hard and soft, geometry and organicity, urban and nature. Stitching, threading, as- sembling, or walking; Tepedino’s poetics revolve around time and memories contained in discarded elements, which he arranges to understand the world.
Tepedino graduated in 2016 with a diploma in Visual Communication from PUC-Rio. Between late 2019 and 2021, this emerging figure of the Carioca scene, Rio de Janeiro, carried out countless ephemeral interventions in vari- ous public spaces of the city, always with the help of friends to carry materials, set up structures, and document the work. Zé Tepedino has had several solo exhibitions in his hometown namely with Casa Triângulo as well as numerous participations in group exhibitions. He recently did a residency at Senne Art Lab, Brussels, Belgium which culminated with a site-specific installation.