Panmela Castro
Rio de Janeiro, 1981
Lives and works between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Panmela Castro is a visual artist whose practice is driven by relationships of affection and otherness, investigating the need for belonging as a central theme of her research. Her production is structured around the concept of "affective drift," in which chance not only permeates her work but becomes the subject of the events that constitute it. Thus, her practice begins with performance, understood as a relational process that unfolds into painting, sculpture, installation, video, and photography. More than mere records, these media function as extensions of performance, capturing and re-signifying the traces of the encounters that underpin her artistic investigation.
She holds a degree in Painting from the School of Fine Arts at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ - 2007) and a master's degree in Contemporary Artistic Processes from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ - 2011). She also completed a postgraduate degree in Human Rights, Responsibility, and Global Citizenship at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC RS - 2023).
Her works are part of international collections such as the Stedelijk Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami (ICA), as well as major Brazilian collections, including the Instituto Inhotim, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP), Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (MNBA), Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR), Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Bahia (MAC BA), and Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Rio Grande do Sul (MAC RS), among others. She is currently part of the long-term exhibition of the collection at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo.
Among her recent exhibitions are "Pretagonismos no acervo do Museu Nacional de Belas Artes" (MNBA - 2025), Bienal das Amazônias "Bubuia: Águas como Fonte de Imaginações e Desejos" (2024), "Terra Abre Caminhos" at Sesc Pompeia (2024), "Arte na Moda: MASP Renner" (2024), "Funk" at Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR - 2023-25), "Histórias Brasileiras" at Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP - 2022), the 13th Mercosur Biennial "Trauma, Dream, and Escape" (2023), "Quilombo: Life, Problems, and Aspirations of the Black Community" at Instituto Inhotim (2022-23), as well as the itinerant exhibitions "Encruzilhada da Arte Brasileira" presented at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Salvador (2024-2025), "Dos Brasis: Art and Black Thought" at Sesc Belenzinho and Sesc Quitandinha (2024-2025), "Um Defeito de Cor" at Museu de Arte do Rio, Museu Nacional da Cultura Afro-Brasileira, and Sesc Pinheiros (2023-2025), "Enciclopédia Negra" at Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Museu de Arte do Rio, Escola de Artes Católica do Porto, and Galeria da Fundação Amélia de Melo in Lisbon (2021-2025), among others.
Her most recent solo exhibitions include "Do Jardim, um Oceano" at Galeria Francisco Fino, Lisbon (2024), and "Ostentar é Estar Viva" at Galeria Luisa Strina (2021). In 2024, she held the exhibition "Ideias Radicais Sobre o Amor" at Museu de Arte do Rio, which was elected the best exhibition of the year by SP-Arte. In 2025, her renowned series "HerStory," which has toured six institutions across Brazil, will travel to Paris as part of the Year of Brazil in France at the invitation of the Brazilian government.
She has participated in artistic residencies at the Goethe-Institut, El Espacio 23, and Black Rock Senegal, which resulted in her participation in the group exhibition "Encounters" at the Blaise Senghor Cultural Center (2024) in Dakar and the solo exhibition "Deriva Afetiva Dakar" at Instituto Inclusartiz in Rio de Janeiro (2023).
A central figure in the fourth wave of feminism in Brazil, as highlighted by Heloisa Buarque de Holanda in her book "Explosão Feminista," Panmela Castro is the founder of Rede NAMI, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting women's rights and combating gender violence. Her initiatives have impacted more than 200,000 people in Brazil and have helped transform the perception of women who are victims of domestic violence in Brazilian society. For her work in art and human rights, she has received numerous titles and awards, including being named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, the DVF Awards, and recognition by Newsweek magazine as one of the 150 women who are changing the world.