Vicente Martins Sobral

Vicente Martins Sobral's photographs investigate and poetically translate the effects of social inequality and temporal dilation in the Historic Center of São Luís do Maranhão. The artist records the economic and social decline of a region once at the center of the city's economic power, while attending to the latent force and vitality of these spaces. His images focus on the daily lives of its inhabitants, carrying the emotional weight, contours, colors, and textures that make up these places. They reveal brothels, bars, sidewalks, and rooms, with figures who display their bodies and habits in areas stigmatized by reductive and confining views. In so doing, the artist captures the inherent beauty of places and objects that exist at lower registers, far from public attention, exploring the limits between the private and the public, the hidden and the exposed.

He participated in the group exhibitions "Fronteiriças" (Galeria Trapiche Santo Angelo, São Luís, 2016), "De Passagem" (Centro Cultural Vale Maranhão, São Luís, 2017), and "Imagina(r) Existências" (Chão SLZ, São Luís, 2018). He also presented the solo exhibitions "Todo Contorno é Margem" (Lima Galeria, São Luís, 2020) and "Tombamento" (Galeria de Arte do Sesc, São Luís).