ARTUR SGAMBATTI MONTEIRO
Artur Sgambatti Monteiro is a Brazilian storyteller with extensive experience in illustration and the socio-environmental sector where he has been active since the beginning of his career. He started studying observation drawing and urban sketching in 2012 and since then he has published 3 illustrated books and contributed to different magazines, universities and studies always with a socio-environmental bias.
He mainly uses watercolor and ink to record his experiences and give subjectivity to often harsh themes. He believes in the transforming power of art and, especially, in bringing people and ideas together through it.
He studied environmental management in São Paulo and worked with socio-environmental projects in different regions of Brazil and the world, including Rio, São Paulo, the Amazon, Angola and Germany. Today he works as a freelance illustrator and storyteller.
MaKaXERa
Macaxeira is among the many names used to refer to Manihot esculenta (also known as Manioc, Aipim, Yuka, Cassava, or Maniva). The plant is of cultural and nutritional central importance in Brazil, and in other countries around the world. It is also one of the oldest domesticated plants in South America, having its origins in the Amazon Rainforest. Moreover, in Tupi-Guarani, Makaxera also refers to a mythical being: the "genius of the path", "the one who takes care of the travellers, of the processes". Below it is possible to check its definition as present in the "(Ancient) Tupi-Portuguese Dictionary" from Moacyr Ribeiro Carvalho (1987).
"Makaxera: Botany: cassava, macachera, plant from the Euphorbiaceae family, genre Manihot, the same from manioc. Mithology: genius of the paths, in the Tupi legende. In Tupinambá it is makaxet".
Here, Makaxera respectfully borrows both meanings. Firstly that of the root, in an exercise of connection with the land, the surrounding world, our stories and ancestry and then that of the path, aiming to understand the world through the eyes of the traveller, the encounters and landscapes that take the horizon . Makaxera is an effort to create layers of subjectivity that bring us affectively closer to different realities. To the other. It is my attempt to capture stories, lives and landscapes through their translation into colors and strokes.
