SMAEL (Ismaël Vagner)
ISMAEL VAGNER DE LINA (DIT ISMAEL) is a Brazilian artist born in Rio de Janeiro in 1980.
He is one of the best-known Brazilian Street Artist in the world. At the head of the Graffiti Carioca movement, Smael began painting in the streets of Rio de Janeiro in the 1980s.
He quickly developed an imaginary world populated by colorful and tortuous creatures. Smael has become one of the key figures of the South American graffiti, and is a great success on the American continent. Its reputation is now gaining in Europe. His lively, colourful and intense works tell us his life in Rio with poetry.
His approach to graffiti has always been innovative and provocative. Through his various works, Smael explores new possibilities of street language by creating a personal image that distinguishes him from other graffitiers.
It is thanks to him that in 2008, the Brazilian government decriminalizes the urban staple. Consecrated not only in Brazil by exhibitions in Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, his fame came to the United States and to Europe where he exhibited several times in collectives. He was also involved in creating a school of graffiti for young people in favelas.