‍​​Estevan Davi is a Brazilian multimedia artist whose elaborate sculptures, informed by mythology and history, take to the present to rapturous effect. In all of his work, and particularly his latest exhibition, Dias Depois Da Queda “O Clarão” at Vermelho Gallery in São Paulo, Davi flirts with the past, weaving a contemporary style with an admiration for antiquity. His transcultural work calls to mind Greek mythology, Mesopotamian folk tales, and indigenous South American epics. There’s an undercurrent of Gods and beasts, a thumping bassline scoring all his works in an apocalyptic magma.

We speak of mythology and music, of art and of process, via Zoom—myself from Berlin and Davi from a lush backyard in his native city of São Paulo. He habitually puffs on a cigarette, tattoos adorning bare arms. It’s easy to buy into his self-assurance. In our conversation, which meanders across artistic eras and mediums, I get the sense that the 25-year-old wants to make something truly timeless: he speaks of his admiration for works like Caravaggio’s “Medusa,” and maintains a fascination with the same archetypes that have inspired different generations of artists for millennia. These archetypes, to me—and to the multitude of artists who have created in their shadows—are exhilarating.

Davi started out as a graffiti artist. From 2013 to 2020, he taught himself to tag, making murals with his friends. A self-taught artist through and through, he attempted formal training at art school before dropping out after one year. “I didn’t like the classes. I quickly learned that I really need to work with my own hands,” he shares. “I left the uni and went to the studio. Everything that I learned—the paintings, the sculptures, [working with] iron, was by myself. Trying, just trying.” Since, he’s expanded his range of expertise at a dizzying pace.

In his sculptural practice, Davi uses both concrete and iron, casting the concrete first. Here, the concrete acts not only as a literal foundation to his pieces, but a nod to the painfully difficult notes of permanence that his creations are trying to communicate. Concrete is everywhere in São Paulo; it grounds his art in a welcoming bit of regionality. He experiments with different silicon concrete molds, blending pigments and erosions, a sort of alchemical experiment. Next he works the oil paintings, and finally, the iron, which he oxidizes using lime, salt, and vinegar. In an attempt to control every factor of the oxidation process, he will eventually find himself settling with the natural results.

Like many painters, Davi is a creature of habit. He describes his rituals lazily, between mouthfuls of smoke from his rolled cigarette, waxing lyrically about his workspace—what his friends call “The Bat Cave.” This is not a nickname borne out of a playful comparison to the brooding Bruce Wayne—Davi quite literally had bats in his studio, through a hole in the roof. This atmosphere suits him, a natural night owl who rises at 11 AM. He smokes a bacci, drinks water, and heads to the studio at 1 PM, where he will remain until 2, 3, 4 AM. “I go to the studio every day, even Sundays.”

The persistence has paid off. Davi’s first solo exhibition, A Queda do Primeiro Sol, (The Fall of the First Sun), took place in October 2023, two months before his birthday, which he dubbed his “astral hell.” Amidst the constant churning, moving, growing, the spring of 2024 ushered in another productive period. By 2025, his next exhibition was complete. “It’s very important for art to be in conversation with itself. So the fact that this new exhibition is referencing the old exhibition, with that continuity…I love the idea of acts. I’m not sure if there’s going to be an Act III, but this is definitely Act II,” he laughs. His own artistic lineage is one of many references in the exhibition, titled Dias Depois Da Queda O Clarão, meaning “Days After the Fall,” the fall referencing his astral hell.

I hold no illusions about the suffering artist trope. A creative person should be capable of generating strong work despite their suffering, not because of it, and in Davi’s case, his period of turbulence yielded an astonishing collection of work informed by metaphor, myth, and his entrance into universal human suffering. “ My mother is really religious, and she used to read me the Bible often,” Davi shares. “I was seeing all the archetypes repeating in different civilizations. Jewish people, Babylonians, Phoenicians. I like painting, for example, a scene from the Bible, in the style of the Sumerians.”

The artist speaks about his childhood with conviction, tying all his influences together. Davi’s father would go on trips to Mexico, introducing him to anthropological and anatomical books that he poured over starting at age six. When he later picked up graffiti, these images started showing up in his work, along with the Biblical and mythical influences of Heroes, Gods, Good vs Evil, and Death. “My dad used to show me a man with a helmet in a spaceship, a sculpture from thousands of years ago. People were already looking to the sky,” he muses.

The sky, the iron, the concrete—cosmic forces furl themselves into humanity in Davi’s fresco-style paintings. I tell Davi about my favorite work in the collection, “La Legge di Demetra, (Law of Demeter),” and he flashes a devilish grin. The piece features illusions to Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico, a favorite of Davi’s, along with Medusa. It’s a classic example of how adept Davi has become at reinterpreting mythic imagery, viscerally. “There’s this plant that is kind of alive, and it has a connection with the flowers and seeds,” he explains of the work, which features just that: a plant whose stems resemble that of a snake, bending backward and forwards on the shore of an out- of-this-world sea. It’s a surreal and moving painting, alien and spiritual, a dreamlike evocation of man’s obsession with himself and the cosmos.

When I ask Davi about what he’s most excited to accomplish next, his answer is simple: “I am very focused on finishing.” He relishes in the idea of an exhibition. His pieces are three- dimensional, impossible to fully grasp unless experienced in- person, tactilely. Estevan Davi’s temporal manifestations of form and culture through resplendent, physical works are just the beginning. One wonders what Act III might offer.