(Brazil, Canada)

People often ask Eduardo Aquino what he does. For a lifetime straddling between art, architecture, and public space, he prefers to be defined more by what he does and less by conventional labels. With an interdisciplinary formation, Aquino studied Architecture in Brazil, has an MFA in Open Media from Concordia University, Montreal, and a PhD from the Universidade de São Paulo with a research project on beachscapes. After working with architects Oscar Niemeyer and Paulo Mendes da Rocha in Brazil, he collaborated with artists Dan Graham, Jeff Wall, Rodney Graham, Jana Sterbak, Tadashi Kawamata, Tony Brown, Eleanor Bond, Anish Kapoor Studio, among others. He has an engaging public art practice, having realized projects across Canada in Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Quebec City, and Montreal. Aquino has completed ephemeral siteworks across Europe and the Americas, in locations such as Mexico City, New York, London, Iqaluit, and Atacama, in Chile. Since the inception of the project Tapume in 2021, Aquino has returned to studio practice through painting after decades of practice in public space. However, painting here is now revealed by sources found in public space, resulting from forms of social input, instead of the confinement of the studio.