In Conversation with Enivo: 20,000 urban interventions and the energy of São Paulo’s urban art
In São Paulo, walls are rarely silent. They carry the visual pulse of one of the most dynamic urban art scenes in the world, layered over decades with graffiti, pixação, murals, and political messages that transform the city into an ever-evolving canvas. From the vertical buildings of the Centro to the neighbourhoods of the South Zone, artists use public space to assert presence, identity, and imagination.
Among the voices shaping this visual language is Marcus Vinícius, known as Enivo, an artist whose trajectory reflects both the energy of São Paulo’s streets and the growing dialogue between urban art and contemporary practice.
Born in 1986 in the Grajaú district, Enivo first encountered a spray can at the age of twelve. What began as graffiti quickly evolved into a lifelong commitment to art, resulting in more than 20,000 urban interventions across São Paulo and cities around the world.
Over time, his practice has expanded beyond the wall while retaining the intensity and urgency of the street. His paintings weave together references to Afrofuturism, Afro-Brazilian identity, and observations of contemporary life, often incorporating symbols and visual codes drawn from a globalised digital culture.
GraffitiStreet
You first picked up a spray can at twelve in Grajaú. What do you remember about that moment, and how did the streets start shaping your identity as an artist?
Enivo
I desperately wanted to exist for the world. I was born in a poor neighbourhood far from the city centre, without knowing what was right or wrong. I admired the bandits and drug dealers; they were my role models because, in my view, they lived very well, had great cars and motorcycles, and beautiful girlfriends. I wanted to be like them.
At 11 years old, I would pick up weapons and commit petty crimes. Until one day, I was riding my bicycle in a nearby neighbourhood, I got thirsty, and I knocked on the door of a classmate, who was a school friend of my neighbour, who also drew. He invited me into his house, gave me water, took me to his room, and showed me his drawing folders. I was very happy and inspired by the trust placed in my classmate’s friend. When I was about to leave, he gave me something wrapped in a bag, telling me to take it away because it was forbidden and his mother might scold him. So I grabbed that bag and took it home, I thought it might be a weapon… when I got home I went straight to the roof where I opened the bag, and there was a can of spray paint.
At 12 years old, when I pressed the aerosol can I felt the greatest joy of my life, an indescribable feeling of freedom. I understood that this was my weapon of ideas, which has accompanied me throughout my life, and since then I have never thought of anything other than art. For 27 years I have had a sincere devotion and love for art!
GraffitiStreet
Do you remember the first time you painted something on a scale that felt monumental? What did that moment feel like for you?
Enivo
I loved the question, I was just thinking about that yesterday! My first large-scale painting was in 2006. I created an independent project called “whoever shares grows” and invited my friends to help me paint this huge mural. I also invited MCs who wrote rap songs, photographers, and videographers to accompany this production.
Twenty years later, the mural is still there, resisting the marks of time and bringing me a beautiful memory of times and friends who have already left this plane!
GraffitiStreet
São Paulo is often called one of the world's street art capitals. From the inside, what makes the creative energy of this city so unique?
Enivo
São Paulo is a monumental, very large city. It’s home to over 10,000 urban artists who compete for recognition on the city’s walls, even if only through our own movement. I’m well-connected and know many people. But what sets São Paulo apart from other cities and countries I’ve visited is the great diversity of styles; everything is very original. Observing the streets, you see urban art ranging from Hip Hop to contemporary art, from paintings with regional influences to super sophisticated pieces. São Paulo is a great open book, telling countless stories every day!
GraffitiStreet
Grajaú has such a strong graffiti history, and artists like Alexandre da Hora (Niggaz) left a powerful legacy there. What did that generation mean to you growing up?
Enivo
Long before the episode where I got my first can of spray paint, I already knew Niggaz and Jerry; they were my childhood friends. The families were friends, and I used to visit their houses. When I was very young, I would go to play video games at Alexandre da Hora’s house, Niggaz’s. He would interrupt the games to show me his numerous sketchbooks. As soon as I started painting in the streets, they took me under their wing, and without any money for anything, they took me all over São Paulo to paint in the streets. In those days of hunger, graffiti was always my main sustenance. Niggaz passed away in 2003, very young, at 21 years old, leaving an immense legacy to the entire following generation. Two weeks after his death, he appeared in my dream, said he was doing well in his new astral plane, and told me that I would be the new Niggaz. Since then, my dedication has been total. 23 years have passed, and I think of this friend every day with great affection.
(Note: I cried while writing this; it touched me deeply.)
GraffitiStreet
Are there artists, from São Paulo or anywhere in the world, who really influenced you when you were starting out, or who still inspire you today?
Enivo
As I said, Niggaz is still my main influence to this day. But I have a lot of respect and I am very inspired by urban art worldwide. The Brazilian Graffiti Foundation inspired me a lot. Tinho, Binho, OSGemeos, Speto, Nina, Vitché, Alexandre Orion, Herbert Baglione, Onesto are my heroes.
When I had access to the internet, I was very inspired by Miss Van and Hera Kut, who are now great friends of mine. Also Futura 2000, Daim, Loomit, whom I had the opportunity to meet and even paint with some of them…
GraffitiStreet
You've created more than 20,000 interventions around the world. After all these years, what still gives you that excitement to go out and paint another wall?
Enivo
Every time I’m in front of a wall, I get the same feeling I had when I first picked up the spray. It’s the perfect mix of adrenaline and happiness!
GraffitiStreet
You studied Fine Arts at the Faculdade Paulista de Artes. How did that experience interact with your street instincts? Did it change how you see painting?
Enivo
I entered university at 17 years old. I already knew what I wanted. I arrived there only understanding graffiti and Pixação. Studying broadened my horizons and allowed me to see the immensity of art in its diverse languages.
GraffitiStreet
After graduating, you spent years teaching art in marginalised neighbourhoods and favelas. How did working with young people deepen your understanding of the social power of art?
Enivo
I still continue giving informal lessons. However, for 10 years I was a teacher in various schools and institutions. At that time, I fulfilled my role in the best way possible, but I had no idea of the importance of all this.
Years later, that seed planted has borne beautiful fruit. Today I see some of my former students, now adults, making a living from art, excelling, opening their own galleries and studios, working with me on major projects. This makes me very proud.
GraffitiStreet
What is the largest mural you have painted so far, and can you tell us more about it?
Enivo
I can’t quite measure dimensions, but the most significant were my first mural in the city centre, called “Urban Shaman,” produced by the great producer Luan Cardoso. I highly value my participation in the NALATA Festival in São Paulo and my participation in the last edition of the VULICA BRASIL festival in Brasília!
GraffitiStreet
Your visual language evolved from lettering into figurative works rooted in Afro-Brazilian identity and Afrofuturist imagination. What catalyzed that transformation?
Enivo
As we mature in life, we also mature in art. And along this path, we come to value our roots, origins, and imagination more and more. To understand where we came from and our importance to our history that will be told from now on.
GraffitiStreet
Your work is full of symbols, emojis, hearts, brick shoes, dogs, phones and other objects that seem to belong to your own universe. How did these characters and symbols enter your world?
Enivo
Each symbol has a strong importance for me; they connect and transmit emotions, memories, and enigmas. They are symbols of the past, present, and future, making people think and reflect.
GraffitiStreet
When future generations look back at São Paulo in this moment, what do you hope your work will reveal about the city and the people who live there?
Enivo
I hope my work reveals the joy of being alive. May the colours be medicine for people suffering in the streets, for helpless hearts, may they give comfort and tranquility to someone who is late on a crowded bus, may they give faith and hope to those on the margins. That Black and peripheral communities recognise themselves in this gesture of affection and generosity!
GraffitiStreet
As co-founder of A7MA in Vila Madalena, do you see the gallery as a bridge between artists from the periphery and São Paulo's formal art system?
Enivo
A7MA Gallery is a great portal, a talent laboratory, an incubator for new artists. 14 years ago, I joined other friends and we founded A7MA due to a lack of opportunity and recognition for contemporary art.
We always go against the grain of the system, and because of that, we are recognised as the leading street art gallery in Latin America! With over 140 exhibitions, we have launched many artists into the world and we are very proud of that.
We are resistance, we are resilience, we are the living, pulsating street art in the veins of the city!
GraffitiStreet
You have an ambitious project underway at the moment. Can you tell us more about this exciting project and what inspired it?
Enivo
On March 28th, my birthday, NUCLE1, an integrated arts centre, will be inaugurated. It’s an 8-story building with over 1500 square metres entirely dedicated to art.
Inspired by movements like Bauhaus and The Factory, NUCLE1 encompasses diverse languages such as painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, regular Yoga classes, painting, dance, circus, and theatre. We will have space for lectures, musical performances, and events. I am very proud, anxious, and tired, haha, but strong and determined alongside my wife and my true friends who accompany me on this journey. It’s a completely independent space. At the moment, I am investing all my time and money in this new project. I have faith that it will be an absolute success!
GraffitiStreet
Can you tell us more about the canvases you are presenting in Urban Equinox, our spring exhibition?
Enivo
I am sincerely very happy with this invitation and opportunity. I want people to feel our Brazilian joy and energy at this exhibition. I am positive and ready for future collaborations.
GraffitiStreet
I love your monumental murals, and I'm equally fascinated by the small portals or universes that you paint. The box works we will present in the exhibition feel particularly special. Where does the imagination behind these worlds come from, and how long does it usually take you to create one?
Enivo
The Little Boxes series began in 2023 when I was in Lisbon at Simon Watson’s (my official curator) artist residency. I received some wine boxes from a collector friend and started painting them. I loved the results, and consequently, people started to like them a lot too. I have the boxes in collections in Lisbon, Munich, New York, Paris, São Paulo, and now in Chichester…
Painting the boxes is very enjoyable, also very technically difficult; many times I have to break the handles of the brushes to be able to paint them. However, when I start painting them, I’m abducted, and the story begins to unfold. It’s all very natural, without planning or prior sketches. I spend about 48 hours painting each box. It’s always a challenge!
For Enivo, painting begins in the street, though it does not end there. Across more than 20,000 urban interventions, his practice has remained anchored in the same feeling he describes from the moment he first pressed a spray can at twelve years old: freedom. That sensation still runs through the work today, whether on a vast city wall, a painted box, a canvas, or within the larger cultural ecosystems he continues to build.
His story is inseparable from Grajaú, from São Paulo, and from the people who shaped him along the way: friends, mentors, students, communities, and those whose presence continues in memory. Through colour, symbol, and gesture, Enivo creates a visual language that carries joy, struggle, ancestry, tenderness, and survival, while also imagining cosmic futures grounded in Afro-Brazilian identity.
In his hands, urban art is an offering to the city and to those who move through it, a living archive of affection, resistance, and imagination. Enivo paints energy, history, with the belief that art can open another way of being in the world.
As NUCLE1 opens its doors, it feels like a point of expansion, a nucleus from which new energies, voices, and possibilities will continue to emerge. With Enivo’s instinct, imagination, and relentless drive, the movement is already in motion, already orbital.
Bring the energy of São Paulo’s streets into your home with Enivo’s work – explore the collection here
Translated by Joana Rosa