Today we’d like to introduce you to Fabio Marinho.
Hi Fabio, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I studied Advertising and Computer Science in Brazil and spent nearly two decades working in the technology and education industries. At the same time, I never really stopped drawing and painting. In 2015, I made the decision to take my art more seriously and began transitioning toward painting as my primary path.
As I developed as an artist, my work became increasingly connected to a process of observing myself and expanding my perception. I became interested not only in what I see, but in how I see, how my experiences shape my perception, and how that perception can be translated into a painting. This process has gradually shaped the way I work today.
I work primarily with oil, acrylic and mixed media, often incorporating materials such as sand, wax, earth, and modeling paste. Rather than trying to simply reproduce reality, I’m interested in allowing the painting to emerge through an intuitive process and in capturing something that exists beyond the immediately visible.
In 2024, my wife and I moved from Brazil to Fargo, North Dakota, where she came for a postdoctoral position. Starting over in a new country was challenging, but it also gave me the opportunity to build my art practice in a completely new environment. I began exhibiting locally, connecting with collectors and galleries, taking on commissions, and expanding my work beyond Brazil.
Today, I work full-time as an artist, creating paintings for collectors in the United States, Brazil, and elsewhere. Looking back, I realize that the years I spent in technology, advertising, and education were not separate from my artistic journey. They shaped the way I think, observe, communicate, and ultimately approach my work as an artist.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. In many ways, my biggest challenges have been internal.
A significant part of my journey has been learning to understand and take responsibility for my own emotions and experiences. I’ve gradually learned to look at difficult situations not simply as things happening to me, but as opportunities to understand something about myself. I try to ask what each experience is revealing, what it is asking me to see, and how I can respond to it consciously.
Art has become an important part of that process. Painting gives me a way to work with those emotions and transform them through the creative process. Sometimes I begin a painting without fully understanding what I am experiencing, and the process itself becomes a way of getting closer to something more essential within me.
There have also been very practical challenges, especially after moving to the United States. I had to adapt not only to a new country, but also to a different language and art market. Understanding how to price my work for a new audience, learning the logistics and customs requirements for shipping artwork internationally, and building relationships in a new environment have all been part of the learning curve.
So, while there have certainly been external obstacles, I think the deeper challenge has always been learning to see myself more clearly. And, in many ways, that process of increasing my perception has become inseparable from my art.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a contemporary visual artist, and my work is centered on perception, transformation, and the relationship between what we see and what we experience internally.
I work primarily with oil, acrylic and mixed media, often incorporating materials such as sand, wax, earth, and modeling paste. My process is intuitive and experimental. Rather than beginning with a fully defined image and trying to reproduce it, I allow the painting to develop through layers, gestures, additions, removals, and transformations. The process of making the work becomes a way of observing myself and expanding my perception.
Much of my recent work explores what happens when the structures through which we understand reality begin to loosen. My series *Emerging Coherence*, for example, is an exploration of dissolution, as the gradual release of rigid perceptions, beliefs, identities, and expectations, creating space for something new to emerge.
What I am most proud of is the fact that I have gradually developed a practice that allows me to investigate these questions through the act of painting. My background outside of art, in advertising, technology, and education, also continues to influence the way I think, observe, and communicate.
What I believe sets my work apart is the relationship between the physical process of painting and this internal investigation. I am interested in what can be discovered through the process of creating it.
For me, painting is an artistic practice and a way of becoming more aware. The more I observe, the more I perceive; and the more I perceive, the more possibilities I find in both the painting and in myself.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I believe risk is an essential part of life. In a way, the moment we are born, we enter a world of uncertainty.
Personally, I try not to think of situations primarily in terms of risk. I prefer to think of them as choices that can lead to different outcomes, and ultimately to different places. There is uncertainty in any meaningful choice, but that doesn’t necessarily make the choice a risk.
Some of the most important decisions in my life have involved stepping into the unknown. Choosing to leave a long career in technology and education to pursue painting full-time was one of them. Moving from Brazil to the United States and building my artistic practice in a new country was another. I could not know exactly where either decision would lead me.
What I have learned is that what we commonly call risk can also be a tremendous opportunity for self-discovery. The more we develop the ability to understand our own emotions, the more we understand ourselves. And the more clearly we understand ourselves, the more consciously we can make choices, even when the outcome is uncertain.
So, for me, taking risks is not necessarily about being fearless or deliberately putting myself in difficult situations. It is about being willing to move forward without having all the answers, while remaining attentive to what the experience is revealing.
Sometimes the unknown is not something to avoid. It is simply another place from which we can learn, grow, and discover something about ourselves that we could not have discovered by staying where we were.
Pricing:
- Original paintings — starting at $1,000
- 36 × 48 in — approximately $2,000
- 48 × 60 in — approximately $3,500
- 60 × 72 in — approximately $5,500
- Larger works / Emerging Coherence series — up to $10,500
Contact Info:
- Website: https://fabiomarinho.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fabiomarinhoart/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fabiomarinhoart
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabio-marinho/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@fabiomarinhoart
