Vitor Mattos (b. 1995, Belo Horizonte, Brazil) is an artist working across photography, video, and performance. His practice is grounded in distress as an inherent condition of being in the world: existence is understood as a continuous state of pressure. Rather than describing events or narratives, his photographs reveal fragments, surfaces, and moments of interruption. His images do not seek to explain the world, but rather register the friction of being exposed to it.

Mattos’ work traces tension across human presence, urban space and other living beings. Operating within thresholds of visibility and proximity, his images resist clarity and resolution. Everyday situations are not transformed into spectacle, but rendered unstable, revealing the quiet pressure that underlies daily life.

This condition of distress takes a material form in his cyanotype works. By folding the paper during exposure, images emerge through pressure, limitation, and resistance. Form becomes what survives this negotiation. Through botanical toning, the cyanotype blue is shifted towards earthy tones, emphasizing contingency and material vulnerability over or control. Distress, in this sense, is not an anomaly but a condition of being alive.


Education
2013 - 2018  Architecture and Urbanism. Federal University of Minas Gerais. Belo Horizonte, Brazil
2015 - 2016  BA (Hons) Architecture: Spaces and Objects. Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. London, United Kingdom
2019 - 2022  MFA Public Art and New Artistic Strategies. Class of Danica Dakić. Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Weimar, Germany

Exhibitions
2025  Kunst des Erinnerns. Schloss Ohrdruf. Ohrdruf,  Germany
2025  Zeitbrücken - Brückenzeit. Haus zum Bunten Löwen. Erfurt, Germany
2025  ERD_REICH. Kunstpavillon Eisenach. Eisenach, Germany
2025  Kunst. Streifzüge durch 20 Jahre Kulturstiftung Thüringen.  Vertretung des Freistaats Thüringen beim Bund. Berlin, Germany
2025  7. Berliner Herbstsalon ЯE:IMAGINE: THE RED HOUSE.  Maxim Gorki Theater. Berlin, Germany
2024  artthuer 14. Erfurt, Germany        
2024  in circuit. Kunsthof Niederarnsdorf. Nobitz, Germany
2024  Turbulenzen: Thüringer Kunst spiegelt ihre Zeit. KunstForum Hannah Höch Gotha. Gotha, Germany
2024  Verschwinden: Was bleibt? Galerie Stockwerk. Weimar, Germany
2024  The trouble of fitting in. footnote centre for image and text. Belgrade, Serbia
2024  Whispers of flappering wings. Trafik Projekte. Brühl-Vochem, Germany
2022  Unter den Nägeln. Thüringer Landtag. Erfurt, Germany
2022  Lost in Translation. Bauhaus-Museum Weimar. Weimar, Germany
2022  III Giennale. Zellkultur. Gießen, Germany
2021  Revolutionale 2021: Festival for Change. Leipzig, Germany
2021  Encounter with the Sleeping Giant. Der Laden. Weimar, Germany
2021  3 Verstärker Kunst-Film-Festival. GEH 8. Dresden, Germany
2020  Miniments. Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Weimar, Germany

Grants and awards
2025  Working Stipendium from the Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Thüringen
2025  Shortlist: Preis der Stiftung Ulla und Eberhard Jung für junge Thüringer Kunst
2024  Residency scholarship from the Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Thüringen
2024  Funding grant for the artthuer  14 in Erfurt, Germany. Granted by SV SparkassenVersicherung
2024  Shortlist: Preis der Stiftung Ulla und Eberhard Jung für junge Thüringer Kunst
2015  Science without Borders, granted by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico

Residencies
2025. Residenzstipendium at Kunsthalle Kleinschönach. Kleinschönach, Germany
2024  footnote centre for image and text. Belgrade, Serbia
2024  Kunsthof Niederarnsdorf. Nobitz, Germany

Professional experience
Working as a graphic designer, artistic director and photographer for various clients since 2023
Since 2025 lecturer for cyanotype at the Weimarer Mal- und Zeichenschule in Weimar, Germany