A LITERARY EXPERIENCE
ONLINE BOOKS
Celso Mathias' literary work is born from the same gesture that guides his brush: observing, feeling, and translating the invisible. With more than four decades dedicated to art, the artist expands his language beyond the canvas and transforms words into color, silence into landscape, memory into narrative. His books are not merely publications—they are extensions of his painting, territories where drawing, poetry, and thought intertwine.
Drawing Live on the Subway is an exercise in presence and speed, born from the movement of the tracks and the proximity of passengers. Simple and direct strokes seek to capture the essence of faces, gestures, and urban silences. For over 15 years, Celso Mathias has traveled through subway cars and stations, recording everyday life in motion, transforming textures, hair, and patterns into visual landscapes where the human and the urban meet.
Art Book
ISBN: 9786501922683
162 pages
Copacabana Ilustrada is an artistic project created in 2004 by the artist Celso Mathias , based on his daily experiences in the Copacabana neighborhood, known internationally as "the little princess of the sea". The project arises from the encounter between direct observation, photographic records, and sketches made in the streets, composing a continuous process of visual and sensitive investigation of the urban space.
With a sensitive touch and stylized realism, Copacabana Ilustrada transcends traditional landscape representation, offering poetic portraits of a vibrant community marked by diversity, cultural memory, and unique stories that are renewed daily.
Art Book
ISBN: 978591390922
86 pages
In this book, boats are not just vessels: they are floating silences, anchored memories, and gestures suspended above the water. "Boats of Urca" brings together drawings made live by Celso Mathias , captured the instant his gaze meets the sea and his line decides to linger.
In the Urca neighborhood, where the city slows down and the horizon opens up in bursts of light, each vessel becomes a character. Quick lines and patches of shadow record the subtle sway of the tides, the quiet of the mornings, and the invisible murmur of the afternoons.
A book for those who find in the simplicity of gesture and the presence of the sea a space for contemplation, memory, and poetry.
Art Book
ISBN: 9786501929163
90 pages
There is a moment at sea that few observe: when the wind dies down, the sails loosen, and the boats rest as if breathing. It is in this interval—between departure and return—that these images are born. The drawings gathered in this book are not portraits of a specific place, but landscapes constructed by the imagination of the artist Celso Mathias, shaped by more than 40 years of sensitive observation of the sea and the daily lives of fishermen. Each drawing seeks the essence of the moment: the gentle weight of the sails, the reflection that trembles without haste, the human presence diluted in the vastness. More than records of vessels, these seascapes are studies of contemplation.
Art Book
ISBN: 978501935553
61 pages
Landscapes of the Unconscious is a book born where technique meets mystery. In each image and verse, Celso Mathias invites the reader to traverse territories that belong not only to sight, but also to imagination, memory, and dreams. His artistic process—letting the paint spread, drip, and reveal unexpected forms—transforms chance into language and gesture into discovery. From the stains emerge mountains, cities, seas, and beings that seem to exist even before being named, as if they were memories of inner worlds. This work does not propose a path, but a state: that of getting lost in order to find oneself. A silent invitation for each reader to explore their own invisible landscapes and recognize, within them, fragments of what inhabits the unconscious.
Art Book
ISBN: 9786501904528
63 pages
Celso Mathias' art spans decades, seas, streets, and invisible dimensions. Now, this trajectory expands into the realm of words, bringing together painting, drawing, and literature in works that engage with the gaze, memory, and imagination.
And in Drawing on the Subway , Celso Mathias transforms commuting into a studio. The Rio de Janeiro subway becomes a space for live observation, where faces, gestures, and urban scenes are captured with spontaneity and intensity. An exercise in presence, visual listening, and immediate recording of contemporary time.
With Barcos da Urca (Boats of Urca) , the artist returns to observational drawing and the iconography of the sea. Inspired by the landscape of Urca, the book records the boats, memories, and silences that inhabit the Rio de Janeiro coastline, transforming the everyday into a poetic document.
In Copacabana Illustrated , the iconic Copacabana emerges reinterpreted through the artist's sensitive touch. Among buildings, boardwalks, and urban figures, the work celebrates the vibrant soul of one of Rio de Janeiro's most emblematic neighborhoods.
In When the Boats Rest There is a moment at sea that few observe: when the wind dies down, the sails loosen, and the boats rest as if breathing. It is in this interval—between departure and return—that these images are born.
In Landscapes of the Unconscious , the artist delves into the depths of the symbolic mind, revealing images that emerge from inner silence—scenarios where emotion, memory, and mystery converse in subtle layers.
These releases solidify Celso Mathias as a multifaceted artist—painter, illustrator, and literary author—whose work transcends mediums and languages. These are books that are not merely read: they are contemplated, traversed, experienced. A celebration of art as a bridge between worlds.
