Originally trained as an architect, Anna Paola Protasio is a Brazilian artist focused on sculpture and installation. For over twenty years she devoted her professional life to architecture, furniture design and stage design. In 2006, she entered the world of visual arts with great success. Her previous experience gave her work a personal precision and exactness, both constructive and poetic at the same time. With a vast knowledge of Art History and design, she takes the abstraction and geometry of forms, and incorporates a deep sensibility and poetry.
One of her main sources of inspiration is mythology, using both the local myths of Afro-Cuban descent of Brazil, and the historical mythologies of ancient Greece and Rome. Elements and materials found in the natural world and in everyday life are also part of her intellectual and visual language. Protasio is not only interested in their formal and structural details, but also in the symbolism and metaphors associated with them. She creates her artistic world around these symbols, often using the contrapositions that occur when putting together different objects or materials, in order to intensify their physical and conceptual nature. Concepts such as the unattainable, the eternal and the subtleties of human existence are recurring themes.
Protasio has held solo exhibitions in museums and cultural centers throughout Rio de Janeiro, such as House France Brazil (2008), the National Museum of Fine Arts (2010), and the Cultural Center of the Post Office (2010). In São Paulo, she has exhibited at the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture (2012), and the SESC (Social Service of Commerce of São Paulo) in Bauru, São José do Rio Preto, São José dos Campos and Ribeirão Preto (2007-2009). Protasio has been the recipient of awards such as Winner of the Contemporary Art Salon of Foreign Ministry (2012), and Third Place at the 27th Annual Arts Hall Embu das Artes for installation, video, photography and performance (2010). Born in 1966, Protasio currently lives and works in Rio de Janeiro.