The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2026 - Issue 39

Marcelo Canevari MarceloCanevari captures JadaBrookes’ attentionwithhismysterious, uncanny, open-ended paintings. biteart Artist Profile A rgentinian artist Marcelo Canevari’s paintings are widely de- scribed as surrealist narratives that blend scientific precision with the ‘uncanny’. Born in Buenos Aires, he grew up surround- ed by the textures and rhythms of the natural world, a close- ness that would become the foundation of his visual language. His father worked as a naturalist, and drawing was woven into daily life as a method of understanding rather than an initial artistic pursuit. “He [my father] showed me how to appreciate painting, and it’s now what I do,” Canevari said in Fountainhead Arts’ video on understanding his sur- real landscape paintings last year. He doesn’t recall a specific first piece, but he remembers drawing animals a lot as a child, with careful attention to get them right. However, “The first work I felt really proud of was a paint- ing I made together with my father. In a way, that moment marked what later became my path as an artist.” Before he became known for his surreal, subtly disquieting landscapes, Canevari trained and worked as an illustrator of Argentine nature. He col- laborated with the Bernardino Rivadavia Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences and the National Parks Administration, contributing to science outreach projects. While this early drawing-documentation discipline still echoes in his work, his paintings now drift toward the symbolic. “I am interested in the overlap between realism and imagination where natural environments become stages for dreamlike or symbolic figures.” Canevari’s artistic formation reflects a steady, exploratory path. He did a Fileteado Porteño workshop with Carlos Santos between 2003 and 2006, absorbing the ornate, swirling visual tradition that is uniquely Argentine. In 2019, he joined the Artistic Research Centre Program with Roberto Jacoby and continued his development in Max Gómez Canle’s postgradu- ate workshop at Torcuato Di Tella University. These experiences expanded his sense of how images could be constructed and scenes could be built to carry multiple meanings at once. His influences range widely, from Flemish painting for its meticulous con-