The Mario Soares Gallery is named after its creator, an artist deeply connected to nature and driven by a lifelong engagement with Art, Fashion, and Design.

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Born into a farming family in Bocaiúva, Minas Gerais, Mário Soares grew up immersed in the colors, textures, and rhythms of rural life. Drawing emerged early as a central impulse, evolving from childhood practice into a lasting artistic vocation.

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At twenty, he left his hometown in search of new horizons, living in Muriaé, Belo Horizonte, and Florianópolis. These experiences shaped both his personal and artistic formation, expanding his perception of people, landscapes, and culture.

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In 2017, he graduated in Fashion Design from the School of Fine Arts at UFMG and later spent a period in Italy, where he deepened his research in Art, Fashion, and Design. Returning to Brazil, he worked as a textile print designer for fashion brands and studios in Brazil and Italy, and co-founded Fratelli Ateliê (2017) and Rapó Creative (2019).

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These trajectories, marked by travel and cultural exchange, gradually formed his singular visual language. In 2020, he founded the Mario Soares Gallery, a space dedicated to visual storytelling, memory, and the dissemination of Brazilian contemporary art.

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His work quickly gained visibility, including an invitation to illustrate the television program Encontro com Fátima Bernardes (Rede Globo) and a feature in Casa e Jardim magazine.

Solo exhibitions include Memories of Minas (2020), Between Masks (2021), and Memories of Minas Gerais at the Guimarães Rosa House Museum, Cordisburgo. He has also participated in international group exhibitions, including at Jan Arnold Gallery in Vienna (2022).

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In 2025, he expanded his research through studies at Parque Lage (Rio de Janeiro) and the Florence Classical Arts Academy (Italy). In 2026, he completed a residency at Bottega Tomaso in Sicily, developing a body of work focused on migration, cultural hybridity, and symbolic exchanges between territories.

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His recent practice explores the dialogue between Brazil and Sicily, two regions shaped by layered histories of migration and cultural coexistence. Tropical and Mediterranean references merge into hybrid compositions where flora, fauna, and imaginary beings inhabit fluid, cross-cultural landscapes.

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The residency culminated in his first exhibition in Italy, Altrove (“elsewhere”), a reflection on displacement, belonging, and transformation.

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Working across digital and manual techniques including acrylic, oil, pastel, watercolor, and gouache, Mário Soares builds a vibrant neonaïve universe where material diversity supports narrative depth.

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His themes encompass migration, everyday life, memory, landscapes, fauna, and flora, consistently transforming lived experience into poetic visual narratives.

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“My purpose is to take you on a journey through art and make your world more joyful and colorful.”