Rosana Paulino’s work centers around social, ethnic, and gender issues, focusing in particular on black women in Brazilian society and the various types of violence suffered by this population due to racism and the lasting legacy of slavery. Paulino explores the impact of memory on psychosocial constructions, introducing different references that intersect the artist’s personal history with the phenomenological history of Brazil, as it was constructed in the past and still persists today. Her research includes the construction of myths – not only as aesthetical pillars but also as psychic influence-makers. Paulino – whose artistic output is unquestionably fundamental to Brazilian art – has produced a practice of reconstructing images and, beyond that, reconstructing memory and its mythologies. ​

Her most recent exhibitions include The time of things, Mendes Wood DM, Brussels, Belgium (2022), Paraíso Tropical, The Frank ​

Museum of Art, Otterbein University, Ohio, USA (2019); Rosana Paulino: A Costura da Memória, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil (2018); Atlântico Vermelho, Padrão dos Descobrimentos, EGEAC, Lisbon, Portugal (2017). ​

Recent group exhibitions include 59th International Biennale di Venezia – The Milk of Dreams, Venice, Italy (2022); Afro-Atlantic Histories, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA (2022); Global Positioning – Public Art Foundation, New York, Boston, Chicago, EUA (2022); Brasilidade: Pós Modernismo – CCBB – Brazil (2022); 22nd Sydney Biennial, Sydney (2020); Carolina Maria de Jesus: um Brasil para os brasileiros, Instituto Moreira Salles, São Paulo, Brazil (2021); 21o Bienal Sesc VideoBrazil, Sesc 24 de Maio, São Paulo, Brazil (2019); Slavery in the Hands of Harvard, Harvard University, Massachusetts, EUA (2019); Histórias Afro Atlânticas, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil (2018).