Tunga (artist)

Antonio José de Barros Carvalho e Mello Mourão (February 8, 1952 – June 6, 2016), known professionally as Tunga, was a Brazilian sculptor and performance artist. Tunga was born in Palmares, Pernambuco, Brazil.

His erudition and philosophical background were reflected in an increasingly conceptual artistic output, which involves the intersection with research in different knowledge fields and a dialogue with literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, theatre, exact sciences and biology. His work is powerful, profound and self-referential, denies linear time and relies heavily on materiality, symbologies and processes of transformation and metamorphoses.