Agrade Camíz: Nome Próprio
Agrade Camíz (b. 1988) s a Brazilian artist who lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. Since 2011, she has been developing her artistic research in painting, initially in the streets, and later expanding into installations, video art, and photography. Seeking to dissect the banal, the almost invisible, she reveals deep and almost secret layers between figurations, abstractions, geometries, where she disputes established narratives. Using signs of popular housing, Agrade redefines spaces and concepts, creating new places. Her work is characterized by its density, its layers that reflect the chaos and intimacy of these geographical and bodily territories.
In 2026, the artist participated in the group exhibitions “Home, A Fire”, at the Cheng Lan Foundation, in Hong Kong; “Améfrica: Diasporic Connections in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection”, at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, in Seville, Spain; and “Dignidade e Luta: Laudelina de Campos Mello”, at the Instituto Moreira Salles (IMS Paulista), in São Paulo, Brazil.
In 2025, she was named one of the 10 artists of the “Artsy Vanguard 2026” and participated in the group exhibition “Exposition de Jeunes Artistes Brésiliens”, held within the framework of Saison Brésil–France 2025, at the Grand Palais, in Paris. In the same year, she took part in the exhibitions “Patrimoniará”, at Fundação Darcy Vargas, in Rio de Janeiro; “Concordar em Discordar”, at A Gentil Carioca, in Rio de Janeiro; “Poéticas do Ruído” (Prêmio PIPA Collection), at Paço Imperial, in Rio de Janeiro; “Dengo, Delírio e o Direito de Amar”, at Solar dos Abacaxis, in Rio de Janeiro; and “Formas das Águas”, at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio), in Rio de Janeiro.
Her works are included in major collections, including the Pérez Art Museum (PAMM, USA); Instituto Inhotim (Brazil); Instituto PIPA (Brazil); Bredin Prat Foundation (France); TBA21 (Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Spain); Tisot Art Collection Trust (Italy); Ernesto Esposito Contemporary Art Collection (Italy); Cheng Lan Foundation (China); Paulo Vieira Collection (Brazil); Catherine Petitgas Collection (United Kingdom); and Heloísa Genish Collection (France).
A Gentil Carioca is pleased to present Nome Próprio, Agrade Camíz’s solo exhibition at the gallery in Rio de Janeiro.
In the accompanying critical text, Larry Ossei-Mensah writes: “for Agrade Camíz, painting is a way of thinking through what remains.” Her practice “carries memory, intuition, labor, and lived experience without attempting to hold them in place.” It begins with what has been absorbed over time: “the streets and domestic environments of Jacaré, the neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro where she grew up; the architecture and contradictions of the city’s suburbs; and the experience of moving between houses, streets, buses, yards, portals, gates, and walls.”
Nome Próprio, Portuguese for “proper name” or “given name,” introduces a question of naming and knowing. A name can identify someone without ever containing “the complexity of who they are.” Camíz’s paintings inhabit this same gap, “offering points of recognition without giving themselves over entirely to certainty.”
