In conversation with Brendon Bell-Roberts, the Brazilian artist reflects on the origins of graffiti, layered urban memory, and participatory practice in his exhibition at São Bernardo do Campo.
SER, 250 cm x 625 cm, 2017, Daniel Melim. Crédito Sylvia Sanches.
For Brazilian artist Daniel Melim, the city is not merely a subject but an active collaborator. Emerging from the graffiti and stencil cultures of ABC Paulista, his practice has long engaged the visual density of urban space, from posters and architectural surfaces to the traces of time embedded in public walls. Urban Reflections extends this relationship by transforming the gallery into an expanded studio where process, site and authorship converge. In this conversation, Melim reflects on the layered memories of cities, the politics of visibility in urban imagery, and the possibilities of collective creation that unfold when the boundaries between street, studio, and institution begin to dissolve.
Daniel Melim. Crédito João Liberato.
Brendon Bell-Roberts: Urban Reflections invites audiences into an expanded studio that reconfigures your creative process within the gallery. How do you see this immersion collapse the boundaries between site, work, and the artist’s presence in relation to the city’s textures?
Daniel Melim: For me, this exhibition begins with the idea that the studio is never an isolated space. My studio has always been permeated by the city. Many of the images that appear in my work emerge from observing urban surfaces, the layers of visual communication, posters, architecture, and the marks of time that accumulate in public space.
When this practice enters the gallery, I am not interested in separating the institutional space from the process that happens in the city. The exhibition operates almost as an expanded studio. Visitors do not encounter only finished works but enter into a mode of construction that comes from the street, based on layering, repetition, displacement of images, and dialogue with the surrounding space. In this sense, the presence of the artist, the exhibition site, and the artwork itself begin to merge. The city is no longer just a visual reference. It becomes a living material that runs through the entire process.
So Me, 207x130x17cm, 2014, Daniel Melim. Crédito João Liberato
The exhibition brings together pivotal works alongside previously unseen pieces that trace your artistic evolution. How do you reflect on the dialogue between memory and innovation that this juxtaposition creates?
Bringing together works from different moments creates a kind of cartography of the journey. When these pieces coexist in the same space, it becomes clear that artistic practice does not unfold in a linear way. Some questions remain over time, while others transform as experience deepens.
The relationship with urban memory has always been present in my work, but over the years, this investigation has gained new layers. Earlier works carry the energy of discovery and a direct relationship with the street and the language of stencil. More recent works reflect a more conscious understanding of the process and of how these images operate within a broader cultural context. When memory and experimentation appear side by side, what emerges is not simply a retrospective but a conversation between different moments of the work. That dialogue reveals continuities, tensions, and shifts.
Se defendem, 200 x 70 cm, 2024, Daniel Melim. Crédito João Liberato
Your practice arose from graffiti and stencil languages rooted in the streets of ABC Paulista. How do you think these origins continue to shape your engagement with institutional space and the politics of urban representation?
My formation took place on the streets of the ABC Paulista region, an area historically shaped by industry, political movements, and the organisation of the working class. Growing up in that context also shaped the way I understand the city. Graffiti and stencil taught me early on that urban space is a field of symbolic dispute. Walls carry messages, narratives, and images that reflect who occupies the city and who remains on its margins. Even when I work within institutions, that awareness remains present. The questions continue to be similar. Who occupies these cultural spaces? Which images circulate within them? Which stories become visible and which remain invisible?
These questions also appear in a very concrete way within the exhibition’s educational dimension. One of the most important movements of the project has been bringing the institution closer to territories that historically have had less access to cultural spaces. The dialogue with initiatives such as Projeto Limpão, located in the Jardim Limpão neighbourhood, emerged precisely from this reflection.
When young people from these territories begin to occupy the institution and participate in workshops and educational activities, something important happens. The boundaries between centre and periphery begin to shift. The institution ceases to be a distant place and becomes part of a broader field of cultural experience.
Mural Coletivo, individual de Daniel Melim. Foto Raoni Moura.
Urban art frequently engages with architecture, consumer imagery and collective life. How do you balance critical commentary with aesthetic play in works that reference everyday visual culture?
The contemporary city is saturated with images. Advertising, signage, architecture, graffiti, packaging, and commercial typography. All of this forms an intense visual field. My work often begins with observing these everyday images and trying to understand how they shape our perception of urban space. At the same time, I am interested in displacing, reorganising, and placing these references in other contexts.
Within this process, critical reflection and visual play coexist. Some images carry implicit commentary on consumption, communication, or the construction of the urban landscape. At other times, the focus is on the graphic power of these languages and how they can be reorganised within painting. The work takes place in this space between analysis and experimentation.
Mural Coletivo, individual de Daniel Melim. Foto Raoni Moura.
The exhibition features a large-format painting and a collaborative mural that invites visitors to participate. How do participatory gestures expand your notion of artistic authorship and collective creation?
Public participation has always interested me because it brings the artwork closer to a collective logic of construction. The city itself is never the result of a single authorship. It is built through many layers of human action and many presences. The collaborative mural in the exhibition emerges from this idea. It creates a situation in which the work continues to transform over time, incorporating gestures from different people.
This participatory dimension is also linked to the exhibition’s educational program. Several educators participate in the project, conducting workshops, conversations, and activities with various audiences. Through this process, a network of exchange is created in which art is no longer only something to be contemplated but something that can be collectively experienced. There is also an important territorial dimension. By involving educators and cultural practitioners from the region, the project contributes to the circulation of knowledge, work, and income within the city.
R de Flor, 150 x 200 cm, 2019, Daniel Melim. Crédito João Liberato
Urban Reflections foregrounds the city not simply as a backdrop but as an active interlocutor in your work. How do you conceive of urban space as a site of memory, contestation and possibility?
I think of the city as a living archive. Urban surfaces store traces of different times. A renovated façade, a partially torn poster, a wall painted many times. Each of these layers contains fragments of memory.
In my work, many images emerge from careful observation of these urban layers. By bringing these references into painting, I try to create a space where different temporalities can coexist. The city does not appear merely as a backdrop but as an interlocutor. It contributes to the work by offering visual material and prompting reflections on belonging, memory, and transformation.
Caderno 30, Daniel Melim. Crédito João Liberato
The textured interplay of stencil, layered imagery and graphic forms suggests an ongoing negotiation between visibility and erasure. How does this formal tension reflect broader social and aesthetic questions you’re exploring?
Layering is central to my process. The city constantly produces images, but it also continuously erases them. One poster covers another. A mural disappears under new interventions. An advertisement is replaced by the next one. This dynamic of visibility and erasure has become a language within my work. Images appear fragmented, partially hidden, or superimposed.
Formally, this creates visual tension, but it also reflects a broader aspect of the urban experience. Not all stories have the same visibility in the city. Some narratives dominate the landscape while others remain almost invisible. Painting becomes a field in which these symbolic disputes can be expressed sensitively.
Presenting this exhibition in São Bernardo do Campo carries a deep meaning for me. It was in this city that my work began to take shape in the streets and public spaces that formed my artistic practice. The ABC Paulista region is widely known for its industrial history and for its central role in labour and political movements in Brazil. This history is fundamental and remains part of the territory’s identity. At the same time, I believe it is important to look forward and recognise the role that culture can play in imagining new futures. Art has the capacity to create new ways of seeing the territory and to strengthen the relationship between people and the places where they live.
One of the central ideas of the exhibition is to think of the city itself as a school. The city teaches through its images, its histories, and the collective experiences that take place in public space. When educational projects connect different territories to cultural institutions, new possibilities for exchange emerge. The exhibition becomes not only a place for presenting artworks but also a space for encounter, learning, and the collective construction of meaning around the city itself.
The exhibition is on view at the São Bernardo do Campo Art Gallery until 28 March 2026.
