Sandra Cinto

Throughout her career, Sandra Cinto has developed a rich vocabulary of symbols and lines to create lyrical landscapes and narratives that hover between fantasy and reality. Using drawing as her point of departure, the artist renders intricate and mesmerizing environments of turbulent seascapes, violent rainstorms, and celestial skies that frequently engage with the surrounding architecture to a disorienting effect, creating the illusion of a weightless, spiraling universe. Evoking stories of human hardship and redemption, these fantastical landscapes serve as a metaphor for the human odyssey, while also pushing the limits and possibilities of drawing.

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Born in 1968 in Santo Andre, Brazil, Cinto currently lives and works in São Paulo. She studied art at the Faculdades Integradas Teresa D’Ávila, Santo André, Brazil, and later received fellowships from Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2000–01) and Civitella Ranieri Foundation (2005).

Since the early 1990s, Cinto has presented her work at museums and institutions worldwide including important solo exhibitions at Fondation Hermès, Tokyo (2020); Instituto Itaú Cultural, Sao Paulo, solo exhibition curated by Paulo Herkenoff (2020); the Dallas Museum of Art (2019-2020); Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati (2017); USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, Florida (2015); the CAAM Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno in Madrid, Spain (2014); Instituto Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo (2010); MACUF Museum of Contemporary Art Union Fenosa in La Coruña, Spain (2007); Wall Project at São Paulo Museum of Modern Art (2003); and Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte (2003).

Among her many public projects and commissions worldwide, her most notable include Prelude to Dream & Melody for the Stars I and II, permanent public commissions at Teatro Cultura Artística in Sao Paulo (2024); Let Freedom Ring, 2023, at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, DC (2023 - permanent); The Wishes Boulevard, 2021 Thailand Biennial, curated by Yuko Hasegawa, Korat, Thailand (2021 - permanent); The Rooftop of the Rosewood Hotel, São Paulo (2021 - permanent); Water Movement, Itaúsa Bank, Sao Paulo (2020 - permanent); Open Seascape at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York (2019 - permanent); Untitled for Murals of La Jolla (2018 - ongoing); The Invisible Telescope at USF Kate Tiedemann College of Business (2018 - permanent); Library of Love at the Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati (2017 - ongoing); The Great Sun, P.S. 56 (2016 - permanent); One Day, After the Rain, commissioned by The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. (2012-2013); Encounter of Waters at Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Park Pavilion (2012-2014); A Casa das Fontes (The House of Fountains), an installation conceived for Casa do Sertanista in Sao Paulo (2013); When The Night Comes Into My Room, an outdoor public commission for Obra Viva/Esculturas Públicas (Living Work/Public Sculptures) at Parque Ecológico Municipal Estoril–Virgilio Simionatto in São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil (2012); and Japonism, a public commission for the SESC swimming pool in Santo André, Brazil (2011).

Sandra Cinto: Acaso E Necessidade (Chance and Necessity)