The artist started with graffiti at 13 in S\u00e3o Paulo. Now, he samples motifs from mythology and his vast, fantastical paintings have taken over the walls of the South London Gallery<\/p>\n
Paulo Nimer Pjota was 15 when he sold his first painting and already a three-year veteran. \u201cI don\u2019t really know what life is like without painting,\u201d the 37-year-old Brazilian artist tells me. \u201cIt is in everything I do, the movies that I watch, the books that I read. They might not have anything to do with art, but I can find something in them that I might be able to use.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pjota\u2019s studio, which once served as his bedsit before he got married and had a son, is in a quiet neighbourhood of S\u00e3o Paulo: there are shelves lined with gourds, skulls, postcards and other trinkets, a pair of skateboards hang on the wall and a desk overflows with tubes of paint. A pile of sketches he made when he was a teenager, discovered at his parents\u2019 house, sit among this productive clutter.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/1ef4e34201d42449390770625bc3e651871b5287\/0_22_1838_1471\/master\/1838.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=884ce26fbe572c395adaf63779d9ecb6\" "\\"\u2018Street")
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