about me
RODRIGO COSTA (b. 1999, Funchal, Portugal) is, above all else, a visual artist interested in the concepts of play and childhood applied to the
day-to-day life. Exploring the fields of painting, sculpture, performance, video and installation, he creates colourful, fun, intentionally amateur-ish
and DIY-like objects and situations, which encourage self-reflection and
the change of certain social behaviours.
Currently based in is homeland, Madeira Island (Portugal), he graduated
with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art – First Class from Coventry University in 2020 and has been dividing his time between art-making and freelancing as curator and cultural manager. Since returning to Madeira, he has teamed up with different branches of the Regional Government to create, establish
and manage two brands that support, give space and promote the work of
young and/or emerging artists under fair and justly-paid opportunities:
the anona gallery (in partnership with the Regional Youth Department) and FRESH CONTEMPS (in partnership with the Regional Secretariate for Tourism and Culture). He often works alongside city halls as well, in projects such as Funchal’s Book Fair and the ENSEADA Festival. At the moment,
he is also part of DGARTES’ Evaluation Committees.
artist statement
My work draws from repressed needs and feelings, those that have been deleted
and/or reprogrammed by society – our purest, unstained self. Researching ways
of reawakening our more organic instincts, by evoking a simpler era – childhood –,
it explores the concepts of playfulness, evasion and obliviousness, with great
aesthetic emphasis on colour, light and scale.
Expanding on a child-like mind – busy, fuzzy, transformative – and utilising diverse
media (painting, sculpture, video, performance), I represent expressions that incarnate
the fleetness so common to children. Inserted in environments that exaggerate in scale
and momentum childish gestures and memories, amateur, odd, DIY-like objects,
installations and situations reflect on how play may inform, extend and disturb what is
described as a socially-acceptable “adult”.
Everything seems to be happening, everything appears to have been created – society exists drenched in utter boredom. We have forgotten the basics, drowned the easiness and killed true will. Instead,
there is a choice to wrongly feed insecurities, rage, hate, egos and depreciation. What I propose with
my practice is the creation of playgrounds for questioning and liberation of the self; a journey of
self-rediscovery that dabbles with scale, memory-based reality, identity and image; an alternative
to the overly complicated now.
2020 ARTSTHREAD x iD Global Design Graduate Show 2020 (shortlisted)
2017 'CriaPoesia '17', CRIAMAR (Honorable Mention)
2016 'Preserving in the present, the future of the past', Madeira Ethnographic Museum (Third Place)
awards and contests
press and other features
_ Cristoph Hoppe (2018) 'Madeira - Insel der Aktiven'. Reise-Inspirationen (Herbst 2018), pp 20-26