Rafael RG’s work emerges from a sensitive attunement to the threads of intimacy, affection, and memory, operating at the intersection of documentary research and subjective experience. His practice — which unfolds through texts, objects, publications, installations, and performances — draws on both personal and public archives to investigate the social bonds and political entanglements of the body, sexuality, and racial identity. By weaving together personal experiences, intimate correspondence, and autofiction with official documents and records, the artist constructs narratives that challenge the boundaries between fact and fabrication, memory and invention, presence and erasure. His works often stem from real events and relationships, approaching chronicle and poetry as ways to articulate the complexity of affect within contexts marked by inequality, oppression, and silence. Through a practice that stitches together layers of time, desire, and language — developed across different cities in Brazil — the artist explores how affective ties and everyday gestures — especially among racialized and historically marginalized individuals — can act as tools of resistance, celebration, and reinvention.

Ao cair da noite, eu me guiarei pelo brilho dos seus olhos, 2024. Performance.

His solo exhibitions include: “A cidade onde envelheço” (2018, Galeria Periscópio, Belo Horizonte – Brazil), “Panos de Mesa/Objetos do Paraguay” (2016, Sé Galeria, São Paulo – Brazil),“Política da boa vizinhança” (2015, Proyectos Artbo, Bogotá – Colombia), and “Ficções do Arquivo” (2014, Aurora, São Paulo – Brazil). He has participated in important group exhibitions such as: “Imagens que não se conformam” (2023, Memorial Minas Gerais Vale, Belo Horizonte – Brazil), “Corpocontinente” (2023, Galeria Periscópio, Belo Horizonte – Brazil), “Da diversidade vivemos” (2018, Galeria Periscópio, Belo Horizonte – Brazil), “Histórias Afro-atlânticas” (2018, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand – MASP, São Paulo – Brazil), “Encruzilhada” (2015, Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro – Brazil), “A mão em negativa” (2015, Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro – Brazil), and “Amor e ódio a Lygia Clark” (2013, Zachęta – Narodowa Galeria Sztuki, Warsaw – Poland).