My name is Felipe Barbosa.
I was born on 4 January 1978 in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro. I live in Rio das Ostras and Rio de Janeiro.
My favourite websites are Google and YouTube.
My official website is www.felipebarbosa.com
My presence at The Olympic Museum means a good opportunity to present my work to a new audience not necessarily interested in the visual arts.
My plans for the future are to continue my research on vintage sports material and organise a book on my public works.
I have exhibited since 1996 all over the world, in particular:
The key stages in my artistic career are my first contacts with artists and colleagues at university, and the building of my main studio,where I can develop all my projects and ideas.
My influences are Bossa Nova music, the American architect and designer Richard Buckminster Fuller, Brazilian folk art and geometry.
The materials I use mostly are soccer balls, vintage sports equipment, bottle caps, and everyday objects in general.
The city of Rio inspires me because it’s my city, with all its conflicts and beautiful nature.
Sport inspires me because it is a search for one’s best results in personal terms as well as material terms.
For me, the Rio Olympic Games are a global celebration of the human search for best results.
Felipe Barbosa plays football. He takes the balls and transforms them into leather mosaics. The national sport of Brazil thus becomes a work of art, multi-coloured landscapes on the walls of galleries and museums.
Barbosa is also familiar with the clusters of balls sold on beaches, using them to make inflatable sculptures or “Bichos”, a playful evocation of the animals of the forests of Amazonia and Tijuca.
