“Antonio’s love for painting is visible, incandescent. His practice is a visual diary, a tool of self-knowledge, a vital process that has accompanied him since childhood. His life stories and his artworks move together, as if one were the extension of the other — or like a dance where it’s impossible to tell where the body ends and the gesture begins.”
Antonio Kuschnir (Rio de Janeiro, 2001) is a visionary artist who weaves together nature and the unconscious, dream and memory, myth and autobiography. He began painting at the age of six at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, where he took part in his first group exhibition. After studying Art History at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) and Painting at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), he developed a mythopoetic approach to painting, where reality is transformed into legend.
In 2022, he presented his Choro series in the main hall of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói — becoming the youngest artist in the institution’s history — and in 2023 exhibited Avalanche at Galpão 808 in Rio de Janeiro. In 2024, he held solo exhibitions at Casa da Escada Colorida (Rio) and at Leerstand als Begegnungsraum (Bonn, Germany).
His works are included in major public collections such as the Collection of the Presidency of the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Museu de Arte Contemporânea – Niterói, the São Paulo Cultural Diversity Center, and the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (MNBA) in Rio de Janeiro. He currently lives in Germany and is an artist-in-residence at the La Napoule Art Foundation in France.