Brazilian artist, philosopher, and professor Marcos Beccari has developed a distinctive approach to watercolor in which technical precision meets an unusually fluid understanding of realism. Born in São Paulo in 1987 and now based in Curitiba, Beccari holds a PhD in Philosophy of Education from the University of São Paulo, as well as a master’s degree and a degree in Graphic Design from the Federal University of Paraná, where he teaches in the Graphic Design program and the postgraduate program in Design. His artistic practice is therefore closely connected to his broader interests in aesthetics, visuality, philosophy, and the ways images construct perceptions of reality.
The remarkable quality of Beccari’s watercolors comes from his ability to combine an apparently photographic level of observation with the unmistakable material language of paint. His portraits carefully articulate skin tones, facial structures, hair, reflections, shadows, and subtle variations of color, yet the paintings retain the transparency and unpredictability inherent to watercolor. Beccari himself distinguishes his practice from photorealism, describing his interest instead in pictorial realism: photographs serve as references, but he transforms their lighting and colors into new compositions. His stated influences include Johannes Vermeer, Anders Zorn, John Singer Sargent, Joaquín Sorolla, Edward Hopper, and other painters whose work demonstrates how selective observation can produce a convincing sense of reality.
Water and the human figure have become especially important subjects within this practice. Submerged bodies allow Beccari to explore a constantly shifting relationship between anatomy, light, transparency, distortion, and movement, while the surface of the water becomes an active pictorial element rather than a simple background. Reflections and ripples can partially obscure a face or body, producing moments in which recognizable forms seem to dissolve into color and light. This tension is central to the artist’s broader understanding of watercolor: the image can appear extraordinarily convincing without concealing the fact that it is constructed from washes, edges, stains, and carefully controlled passages of pigment. The exhibition Olhar Submerso, presented by the Fundação Cultural de Curitiba, explored precisely this relationship between representation, water, and the visible processes of painting.
Despite the apparent complexity of the finished images, Beccari’s process remains grounded in the fundamental constraints of watercolor. He works primarily on cold-pressed 300 g Arches paper, using pigments from brands such as Sennelier and Schmincke and a range of brushes, with paintings commonly produced in formats of 38 × 56 cm or 56 × 76 cm. He estimates that a finished work generally requires four to six hours, although the apparent speed of the process belies the planning required to control values, color relationships, composition, and the behavior of water on paper. His paintings ultimately occupy an intriguing space between illusion and materiality: the more convincingly they suggest skin, reflections, or moving water, the more clearly the subtle decisions behind each wash and edge reveal the particular possibilities of watercolor as a medium.
More info: Website, Instagram, YouTube.
