Gabriella Marinho

Gabriella Marinho lives and works in São Gonçalo, Rio de Janeiro. Drawing from her background in journalism and African Literatures, Marinho works with clay, earth, and soil as both the material and conceptual foundations of her practice.

Through sculpture and paintings created with earth pigments, she develops organic and abstract forms that reflect Afro-Brazilian and Afro-diasporic identities, creating intimate connections among body, territory, ancestry, and nature. Her work is deeply informed by the landscapes she researches and gathers materials from, transforming collected earth into poetic expressions of memory, identity, and belonging.

Alongside her artistic practice, Marinho is actively involved in art education, developing collective approaches that bring artistic creation into conversation with environmental knowledge and community experience.

Marinho has participated in artist residencies in Taiwan and Angola, was nominated for the PIPA Prize in 2023, and was recognized by MOOC100 as one of Brazil’s ten emerging Black artists. Her work has been presented in exhibitions at Galatea, Sesc Pompeia, Museu de Arte do Rio, MUNCAB, CCBB, and Taipei Artist Village, among other leading institutions.

Marinho’s practice is grounded in clay, earth, and soil as both material and philosophical foundations. Working across sculpture, installation, painting, and performance, she investigates relationships among body, territory, ancestry, and memory through an Afro-Brazilian and Afro-diasporic lens. Her methodology begins with the collection, observation, and study of soils gathered from the places she encounters, which she transforms into vessels of cultural knowledge and lived experience.

For Marinho, earth is not simply a medium but an archive, carrying histories of migration, labor, belonging, and transformation. Her organic forms, earthen pigments, terracotta sculptures, and experimental ceramic structures emerge from an embodied dialogue with landscape, often drawing connections between Brazilian territories and broader Afro-diasporic geographies.

Central to Marinho’s philosophy is an understanding of clay as a living technology and repository of ancestral knowledge. Self-taught through sustained experimentation and research, she engages techniques including hand-building, coiling, terracotta firing, engobe application, and earth-based painting, while preserving the traces of manual labor and material irregularity.

Her practice extends beyond the studio through art education and collective learning, creating connections among artistic production, environmental knowledge, and community life. By challenging historical hierarchies that have marginalized ceramics within contemporary art, Marinho repositions clay as a critical medium through which questions of identity, memory, ecology, and Afro-diasporic knowledge may be expressed and shared.

Our Foundation’s support, together with Marinho’s residency at The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, will enable her to expand the material and conceptual dimensions of her practice. During her first residency in the United States, she will deepen her research into ceramic processes, encounter new soils and landscapes, and engage in dialogue with artists and practitioners working across contemporary ceramics and the broader field of material-based art. The residency will provide a pivotal opportunity to develop new work while extending the geographic and cultural conversations already central to her practice.

  • Sem título, da série Rastros [Untitled, from the Trails series] (2026)

    30 x 30 cm

    White sand, waji, PVA, acrylic, charcoal, and varnish

  • Sem título, da série Rastros [Untitled, from the Trails series] (2026)

    11 3/4 x 65 3/8 in (overall dimensions)

    White sand, waji, PVA, acrylic, charcoal, and varnish

    Image courtesy of the artist, Photo: Ding Musa

  • Agô (2021)

    Variable dimensions

    Ivory ceramic, red clay

    Image courtesy of the artist, Photo: Fabio Souza

  • Com o coração na mão (2019)

    Photoperformance, 16 7/8 x 12 1/4 x 1 5/8 in (framed)

    170 gsm Matte Coated Paper

    Image courtesy of the artist, Photo: Mateus Almeida

  • Sem título [Untitled], da série [from the series] Caminhos (2023)

    23 5/8 x 11 3/4 in

    Soil and PVA glue

    Image courtesy of the artist, Photo: Ding Musa

  • Trilogia Fun Fun [Fun Fun Trilogy] (2025)

    5 7/8 x 16 1/8 x 15 in

    Porcelain, sisal and waji

    Image courtesy of the artist, Photo: Ding Musa

  • Caminhos são como impressões digitais [Paths are like fingerprints] (2025)

    17 3/4 x 15 x 11 3/4 in

    Porcelain

    Image courtesy of the artist, Photo: Ding Musa