CÁSSIO VASCONCELLOS

Cássio VASCONCELLOS (1965-) is a Brazilian photographer, born in São Paulo. He studied photography at the Imagem-Ação school of São Paulo before starting a career in photojournalism. In between photo stories and advertising work, he shoots for his own photographic collection. Active since 1981, VASCONCELLOS has shown his work over 200 times in more than 20 countries. The artist’s photographs are in Brazil’s main private collections as well as in international museums. He won the Paulista Association of Art Critics award (APCA – 2002) for best photography exhibition of the year with Noturnos São Paulo.

Praised by peers and art critics alike, his nocturnal photographic series are intriguing urban excursions, paced by multicolor lightnings. The theme of travel, ever present in his work, is also expressed through means of transportation : roads, planes, cars… that VASCONCELLOS pictures from the sky. In his series Collectives, their repetition turns them into simple patterns, blended into the large frame of the picture.

Cássio VASCONCELLOS instigates a visual debate in the urban chaos of modern civilization.

In this series, he explores situation that are visually overloaded, a common feature of our societies. He pictures overcrowded beaches, bikers meetings, parking full of vehicles, plane graveyards, mass gatherings, and the bustling activity of the trucks of Caesa, the biggest wholesale food market of Latin America. All these situations were shot using the right angle of a helicopter view. Constructed by using hundreds of photos shot during the project, the finalized images recreate an effect that juggles between reality and fantasy bluffing our senses in perfect tableaux compositions of color, line and geometry.

in his series A picturesque voyage through Brazil, Cássio VASCONCELLOS takes us into the lush nature of the Amazon. Feet on the ground, camera in hand, his gaze invades the rainforest depicting its lush beauty, following the steps of his great-great-grandfather, Ludwig Riedel (Berlin, 1761 – Rio de Janeiro, 1861), the botanist of the Langsdorff Expedition). The photographer takes on a double role. He is a botanic activist, describing the delicate and diverse nature of tropical ecosystems with an almost scientific precision. He is also an artist, illustrating the beauty and soft colors of the forest canopy.